Elia Kazan's varied life and career is related here in his autobiography. He reveals his working relationships with his many collaborators, including Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, John Steinbeck and Darryl Zanuck, and describes his directing "style" as he sees it, in terms of position, movement, pace, rhythm and his own limitations. Kazan also retraces his own decision to inform for the House Un-American Activities Committee, illuminating much of what may be obscured in McCarthy literature.
Kazan brings to the undiluted telling of his story all the passion and truth, the almost outrageous frankness, that have made him so formidable a stage director (A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman), film director (On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Splendor in the Grass), and bestselling novelist (The Arrangement). Illustrated.
