Marlon Brando was the original angry young man and won an Oscar for his role in “Academy Awards''. on the waterfrontA film directed by Elia Kazan about corruption in labor unions. However, at the Italian premiere in 1954, he realized that his voice had been dubbed and refused to watch it in anger, a new book has revealed.
“Why didn't anyone tell me they were going to watch the dubbed version?” he spluttered, furious inside the darkened cinema. His bewildered agent, who was expecting the original English version, recalled him “staggering out of his seat as if he had had a heart attack” and frantically whispering, “Get me out of here!” Ta.
Brand could not calm down. “I've never seen myself dubbed,” he was quoted as saying. “I'm an actor, not a ventriloquist's dummy. For Christ's sake. Can you imagine what it's like to hear someone else's voice coming out of my mouth? When I watch a sideshow, I realize that I'm a total weirdo.” I feel like, “Christ, why didn't someone prepare me?'' Don't you guys know?''
The incident was one of those exposed in the memoirs of an American couple, Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner, who arrived in Rome from New York in 1953 and met with big names such as Anita Ekberg and Eva. He became an agent, friend, and confidant to movie stars. Gardner and Simone Signoret.
Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Lerner died in 2012 and 2004, respectively. Now, their role as unsung promoters and change-makers of the industry in the 1950s and 1960s is being recognized with the publication of their memoirs. Hollywood on the Tiber River.
They wrote the book in the late 1970s, but it was only published in Italian in 1982. The stars who appeared on its pages may have objected to revelations that reflected the ups and downs of celebrity, which Lerner described as “toxic.” Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Federico Fellini appears.
The memoir will be published in English for the first time next week by Sticking Place Books, which specializes in neglected publications. The book's publisher, Paul Cronin, says: “When I first came across this book, I thought: la dolce vita meet Please call my agent!'”
He said that for nearly two decades, Kaufman and Lerner have been intimately involved with their clients' ambitions, fantasies, hopes and loves, on screen and off, day and night.
In a chapter about Brando's premiere, they write that when Brando was escorted to the movie theater in a black Cadillac, they were “not prepared for hysteria” at the “screaming crowd” that engulfed Brando as he emerged from the car. It is written. Once inside, I was overwhelmed with nervousness as I was seated next to 19-year-old Italian actor Sophia Loren.
“Brando has made art out of tweets. But now the films in which he has achieved such complete obscurity that it overwhelms him, and breathtaking double-takes as astonishing as the one prompted by Lauren's frontal device. It wasn't there yet…Marlon's efforts not to stare It was just as farcical as the first second look. He couldn't speak, and they sat in restless silence, except for occasional smiles at each other. Every time it appeared, Marlon stared at Sophia with his mouth open and his eyes wide.
When Brando was about to leave the theater after the dubbing, Lerner warned him: They'll say you hated it, denied it, whatever. They write a lot of movies, but they don't say anything about the quality of the movies. ”
No one would be the wiser, Brando visited a nearby bar and was persuaded to sneak back into the theater five minutes before the movie ended, investigators recalled. “As the theater lights went up, Brando stood leaning, atop the mezzanine railing, to rapturous applause and shouts of bravo.”
In the memoir, the couple also recalled that Ava Gardner was in a state of “hysteria” because her boyfriend, Italian actor Walter Chiari, was “addicted” to cocaine. “He smells. He could be doing something worse,” she cried, pleading with them to “do something.”
They also described the sordid side of the industry, pointing to Anita Ekberg's reaction when she heard that a director wanted to meet her, saying, “Who is he to just disrespect me?'' “Are you some other kind of person who just wants to make my body black?''
When Ekberg heard that Sean Connery had married Diane Cilento, he was shocked and told Lerner: When it comes to true love, I'm always fooled. ”
Investigators remember Shelley Winters becoming “extremely jealous” after discovering her husband Vittorio Guzman playing “hanky-panky” with another actor backstage. “Sherry had a fetish for mirrors. She screamed and slammed many of them against the wall of Guzman's dressing room. Fortunately… she was not injured by the flying glass shards.''
The memoir has a foreword by Sandy Lieberson, who worked with Kaufman and Lerner in Rome and produced the work of Nicolas Roeg. performanceamong other films. He writes: “Not only myths and legends, but also an abyss filled with drug addiction, unfulfilled dreams, sexual preferences and its filth. Hollywood on the Tiber River All these together. It's heaven and hell. ”
