TLS, one page, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, May 25, 1976. Letter to a journalist from the BBC’s Music & Arts Department, in full: “I was not appraised of your letter in regards to an interview for your program about Tennessee Williams until my return from out of the country yesterday, May 24th. I will be happy to accommodate you if it is not too late. I will be going to Tahiti for my son's birthday in the next few days, and then I will be returning back here to Los Angeles. My schedule is indefinite, unfortunately.” The recipient's name has been blotted out and the original mailing envelope flap, bearing Brando's Mulholland Drive address, is stapled to the reverse. In fine condition, with some light creasing and faint staining.
When John Garfield’s contract to play Stanley Kowalski in the debut of A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway collapsed, Elia Kazan remembered the name of a 23-year-old up-and-comer he had produced in Maxwell Anderson’s Truckline Café: Marlon Brando. Kazan had his choice for Stanley, but he needed to convince playwright Tennessee Williams, so he gave Brando $20 and sent him to the playwright’s home in Provincetown. Per an article by the BBC, Brando hitchhiked and arrived late, but when he finally began reading, ‘he dismissed his girlfriend and sat in the corner of the clapboard house with Margo Jones, her friend Joanna Albus, and Williams, who cued him as Blanche...Brando was only 10 minutes into his audition when Jones bolted from her chair with a whoop of delight. ‘Get Kazan on the phone!’’ Williams was equally as impressed: ‘A new value came out of Brando’s reading. He seemed to have already created a dimensional character, of the sort that the war has produced among young veterans.’ Brando was signed within four days.'
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