In 1957, Truman Capote had done it again.
Written for The New Yorker, “The Duke in His Domain” dissolved the absolute mystery surrounding Marlon Brando. And of course, it was Capote, and The New Yorker, so the writing was rich as chocolate cake, and the source unquestionable.
Douglas McCollam writes about the pivotal event, and about the incredible parallels that can be drawn between the lives of Capote and Brando:
It is hard, perhaps, for the modern reader to get a sense of just how stunning Brando’s personal revelations would appear to an audience of the time. Today we are used to—and have even grown cynical about—tawdry stories of the rich and famous. But in 1957, the Hollywood studio system that for so long had carefully controlled the images of its stars was just coming to an end. Intimate details of an actor’s personal life had been confined to disreputable scandal rags. Never before had the inner psyche of a star of Brando’s magnitude been served up for public consumption, much less by a writer of Capote’s stature. This was something new.
