Elia Kazan wrote one of my favorite memoirs, called Elia Kazan: A Life. It is expansive, emotional, contradictory, angry, self-revelatory, gossipy, unforgiving and yet forgiving, intelligent, and fascinating. It is filled with characters whom I almost regard as old friends:
— John Garfield
— Clifford Odets
— Marlon Brando
— James Dean
— Marilyn Monroe
— Kazan himself …
and he can tell a yarn. He certainly can.
Excerpts below.
Have you read any of his novels? The Assassins, the only one I’ve read, was an excellent, troubling book.
Actually – no, I’ve never read them! But I have heard good things.
He’s a good, if messy, writer. I like the mess – it’s very emotional.