WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING about
BRANDO UNZIPPED
Yummy. That sums up veteran entertainment reporter and biographer (of Howard Hughes and
Humphrey Bogart) Porter's titillatingly tabloidish account of Marlon Brando's eccentric, sex-centric
years. The author barely pauses to take a deep breath as he dishes - drawing on 50 years of
conversations with dozens of Brando's intimates - about the late, great actor's personal life.

As befits "unzipped," much of the book focuses on the bisexual Brando's many sexual partners, from his
World War II romance with playwright Clifford Odets, through his affairs with Stewart Granger, James
Dean, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson  just a few among the many men he's said to have
bedded, all the while squiring the great actresses of the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s, and marrying
and divorcing a couple of times. But there's way more to the biography than sex: Porter writes with an
insider's astuteness about the actor's movie career, critical passages that provide welcome depth.

But it's no exaggeration to report that practically every page discloses a fascinating homosexual tidbit -
about Liberace successfully seducing Dean, for example, but failing to seduce Brando. This is an
irresistibly flamboyant romp of a read.

               From Richard Labonte's Bookmarks & Books to Watch Out For
                (www.qsyndicate.com   and   www.BTWOF.com)

BRANDO:  TRULY THE WILD ONE:


"A thick new biography of Marlon Brando promises to be the definitive gossip guide to the great actor's
life.

BRANDO UNZIPPED by Darwin Porter claims that he covered as much ground on the Kinsey Scale as he
did on the bathroom scales. The book says: 'From Rock Hudson to Vivien Leigh, from Bette Davis to
Cary Grant, Brando slept around, even managing to seduce two of America's First Ladies.' The
plausibility of that is debatable, but there's a (literally) jaw-dropping scene on page 320, involving Peter
Lawford, another actor, and 'a motor trip to Palm Springs' which you can bet they didn't run by Nancy
Reagan's lawyers before publication.

Collectors of Brando ephemera might appreciate the inclusion of a certain infamous photograph.
(Confidential to Hazel Gutberlet of Palisades Park, NJ--who finds me a tad vulgar, according to the
mail--this is your cue to turn away.) The image depicts a Monica Lewinski moment between Brando and
another man.

'We ran it at a tasteful 2 inches by 1 3/4 inches on page 404,' says Blood Moon publisher Danforth
Prince.'

In journalism, we call that 'burying the lead.'"


                                  From The New York Daily News,
                               Ben Widdicombe's GATECRASHER column, January 21, 2006
Brando's Little Black Book:


In an astonishing new biography, BRANDO UNZIPPED, Darwin Porter paints an extraordinarily detailed
portrait of Brando, particularly about his early years, that is as blunt, uncompromising, and X-rated as the
man himself.

It is nearly impossible to explain to those who have only seen Brando as The Godfather in 1972, or as a
bloated behemoth in his last films, how his uninhibited carnality and skin-thight jeans shocked and
astonished audiences in the late '40s and early '50s.  He was the living, breathing embodiment of sexual
desire in an era when movie censors even forbade the word 'virgin' on-screen.
"I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous," Brando once declared. "I don't think it's in the nature
of ANY man to be monogamous.  Sex is the primal force of our and every other species."  

                                               Women's Weekly (Australia), November, 2005 edition
                                      as reviewed by Karen Moline