Elia Kazan: A Life

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.

Elia Kazan's work includes stage productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as well as films like On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and Splendor in the Grass. He is also the author of The Arrangement, America America, and The Assassins, among others.