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List Price: $26.95 | | Publisher: Blood Moon Productions, Ltd.
Salesrank: 189845
Released: January 5, 2006 |
| Our Price: $14.33 |
| Used Price: $10.74 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
THE BOOK THAT HAD TO WAIT FOR BRANDO TO DIE The mysteries that enveloped the late superstar MARLON BRANDO (1924-2004) are unwrapped and exposed in a richly anecdotal “warts-and-all” biography, BRANDO UNZIPPED! by bestselling biographer, Darwin Porter. The greatest film actor of the 20th century lives again in these pages, each meticulously researched over a period of more than 40 years. Each of the people Porter interviewed, including many of Brando’s lovers—both male and female--had a different story to tell. Many of them contradicted heretofore published accounts of how those encounters evolved. Hostile witness or loving friend, each subject added a piece to the mosaic. The result is a fully rounded view of a revolutionary actor who, like “lightning on legs,” electrified the world in Streetcar Named Desire, where he played Stanley Kowalski in the Broadway version of 1947, and the film version in 1951. The book also describes his Oscar-winning turn as Terry Malloy, the boxer who could have been a contender in On the Waterfront in 1954, and his electrifying comeback as Vito Corleone in The Godfather in 1972. The combative, moody, iconoclastic, polarizing, and enigmatic figure appears as a flesh-and-blood creation in this revelation-studded bio. It’s all here: “The Rebel Without a Cause” who made rebellion hip. The suicide attempts of former girlfriends, Startling stories about “Sleeping with the Enemy” (bedding a stalker who turned out to be a cannibal in disguise). His involvement with the Black Panthers. The ill-fated marriages, bitter divorces, and child-custody battles. A son with a murder rap. Jealous actors who wanted to seduce Brando and then “become Brando” on screen. With candor, the author unveils the details of that ongoing disaster that Brando called “my life.” The charismatic personality of The Wild One is recaptured in all its brooding power that seemed forever ready to explode at any moment. The same animalistic intensity that Brando brought to the role of Stanley Kowalski lives again within the pages of this bio. From sex symbol of the 1950s to a swollen, overweight slob who became a tabloid scandal in the 90s, Brando was one of filmdom’s true originals. Women wanted him, and certain men wanted him, and Brando was willing to share his charms with a string of lovers whose hangouts ranged from the A-list boudoirs of New York and Hollywood to the back alleys of a string of cities from New York to the slums of the South Pacific. Throughout this biography, Brando’s quirky and sometimes bizarre humor often bubbles to the top. As an example, once, when he was asked for a summation of his life, Brando said: “I’ve never been circumcised, and my noble tool has performed its duties through thick and thin without fail!” More than the story of Brando himself, the biography chronicles the loves of his life, most of which were of short duration but played out with the same kind of intensity he brought to the screen. Regardless of their origins, his affairs invariably crossed the American plains to land on the opposite coast. His lovers were as mercurial as his own personality. They included Doris Duke, the richest woman in the world, and Burt Lancaster, the actor originally targeted for the role of Stanley in Streetcar. The true story of his explosive relationships with Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra is printed for the first time, as is an array of friendships and/or feuds with such unlikely figures as Richard Burton, Charlie Chaplin, and (believe it or not), Michael Jackson. The roles Brando lived off-screen were even more provocative and intriguing than those he created on screen. He paraded through the bedrooms of such luminaries as an aging Marlene Dietrich, and enjoyed one-night stands with both Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy. His tortured relationships and love affairs with James Dean and Montgomery Clift are explored in depth, as is the pass
Brando Unzipped: A Revisionist and Very Private Look at America's Greatest Actor Reviews:
The End of Illusions 
2008-09-20 - If you still have any illusions about Hollywood and/or your favourite actors and actresses, please do not read this book or they'll be shattered for ever! Apart from that, a highly entertaining book, if somewhat repetitive.
No Stars 
2008-05-09 - Cannot imagine someone enjoying this book or believing 99% of it. It is not even speculative. It's lower. Suited for a person of very low intelligence, so please do not waste your money. Talentless author that published the book a year after Brando died. Truly the work of genuine scumbag. Have to say I did not read the description before I purchased it. My fault. It's somewhere in the county garbage dump.
Don't waste your money!
2008-01-29 - [...]
It is worth noting that except in the cases where people have already told all in their memoirs, or have made no secret of their proclivities, ALL the people referred to are dead. Because of a quirk in the law which says that the dead cannot be libeled, a muckraker can say anything he or she wants to without having to verify the facts. If we are to believe this writer, there is hardly a deceased actor or actress who was not gay or bisexual, on drugs and engaging in frenzied sexual activity, trolling the brothels or picking up rough trade.
Other than quotations from "tell all" memoirs, as there are very few references we have no way of knowing where the information came from and whether it was true. As other reviewers have noted, how did they find the time for all these liaisons? There is hardly a big star of the 40's and 50's who is not allegedly gay or lesbian. While we know that there have always been long-standing rumours about some stars, I for one refuse to believe that so many actors and actresses worked as prostitutes prior to stardom, or the A list female star who liked to go to brothels specialising in look-alikes, and pretend to be her own impersonator. As I said before, they are all dead, and cannot refute these claims.
Whether or not there is any truth in it, I would prefer to keep my illusions of handsome leading men intact.
The book contains inaccuracies that a good editor should have caught: e.g. Susan Cabot is reported to have married in 1968 and subsequently gave birth to a son, Tim, who allegedly killed her on December 10, 1986 when he was 22 years old; however, if he had been born in 1968 he would only have been 18 yrs. old! The book is also surprising for totally leaving out some people whose nefarious association with famous stars has long been known, such as Nick Adams and James Dean.
While Marlon Brando's many affairs and lack of parenting skills are well documented, this trashy Hollywood Babylon paints a picture of a voracious sex maniac willing to try anything and everything.
[...]
Tedious and long winded
2008-01-06 - I had read the serialised version of the book and thought that it was going to be a well written, racy, and meticulously researched biography of Marlon Brando. I was bitterly disappointed.
The structure of the book is very poor. The book seems to meander through Brando's early life at a very slow pace. The author fails to use endnotes and footnotes to help make the book more readable and instead chooses to be easily distracted by the interesting lives of Brando's acquaintances. For example Liz Renee a burlesque dancer with a fascinating life story of her own supposedly had a brief affair with Brando. Personally I believe her life story should have been in the footnotes and just the part about her affair with Brando belonged in the main text. Instead we were given a summary of her exploits, interesting as they were, when you consider how many people Brando knew you can imagine how distracting this is and how tedious it becomes when every other character receives this treatment. Concentrating heavily on Brando's early life and career the book seems to stop in the early to mid 1960s. After this point it descends in to boxes with a picture and a few paragraphs about later events in Brando's life. I expected there to be quite a lot of information about Brando's children especially Christian there wasn't. Even the death of Dag Drollet was reduced to just a brief outline of events that took place. It would have been better if the book only concentrated on his life up to the late 1950s because after this the book seems to be unfinished. Considering the author's determination to put all sorts of mini biographies of Brando's acquaintances in the main text it seemed to really jar that after the 1960's the detail becomes so scant. I was even left wondering who Brando's children were exactly and to whom? What became of his children, wives and lovers?
The content of the book varies greatly in detail and I was frequently unsure where the information was coming from. I was unhappy with the fact that there where not explicit references. I gather that the author got a lot of information from interviews but even then I was not always sure who the contributor was. Even written sources such as other biographies were not referenced within the text. The revelations made in the book are not for the faint hearted and are frequently cringe worthy and the lack of referencing only made me suspect their validity. Whole conversaions were remembered at times in the book which just didn't ring true to me, I imagine this was the result of using interviewees recollections but it simply didn't seem right. Although I would not doubt that many of the revelations were possibly true it made the book read like a fictionalised biography. By the time I had finished reading the book I felt as though I had waded through an uncorrected proof that was going to be subject to a major overhaul.
One good point about the book was that it did include lots of photographs that were useful for identifying people that were mentioned in the text. However the pictures themselves were only small and printed within the text itself so they were not really of great quality.
In short I found the book to be tedious and repetitive. It was long winded at the beginning and seemed to be extremely brief at the end. Ultimately I wondered how the author had made such a wild life such a chore to read about!
Superb TRASH!!! 
2008-01-05 - This is one of those rare books that is so terrible that it's worth reading just as a profound oddity. Darwin Porter, who may be completely out of his mind, has put together one of the most fantastical, tittilating and hilarious biographies ever. In his so-called research, he lists an impressive number of Hollywood personalities whom he has either known or managed to contact, and thrown their quips and rememberances into a sludge pot of gossip nirvana. Marlon Brando emerges not so much as the great artist, but as a seething multi-sexual lothario, bedding nearly every attractive (and quite a few unattractive) guys and gals that had happenned to cross his path in life. A considerable amount of book-time is spent on grafic sexual exploits, and espeially Brando's 'tool', which one assumes, may have been the true source of this great actor's talent. Anyway, for nearly anyone who an inkling of Hollywood history back in the time of the 50's and 60's, this book should be of considerable interest. It's chuck-full of terrific photos, including the infamous 'oral' photo of Brando and Wally Cox. I am gay and I love Hollywood. This book is sheer camp, the trashiest trash ever, and even if most of it is piffle, it is truly fun to read.
