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The incredibly true story of Anna Kashfi and her marriage to Hollywood’s greatest star, written by film and television producer Sarah Broughton.
In October 1957 Marlon Brando married a young studio actress called Anna Kashfi. He was thirty-three and at the pinnacle of his beautiful fame having recently won an Oscar for On the Waterfront.
The wedding was front-page news around the world. His new bride was twenty-three, claimed to be an Indian princess and was pregnant.
The day after the wedding a factory worker living in Wales, William O'Callaghan, revealed that Brando's bride was in fact his daughter, Joan O'Callaghan and had been a butcher's assistant from Cardiff.
This book sets out to discover who was telling the truth and who was lying – and, perhaps more importantly, why?
‘There will not be a better written, more understanding and forensically researched biography published this year.’ Roger Lewis, The Daily Mail
‘As much as a biography, is a cool dissection of an era. The famous Hollywood sign was only a year older than Brando. His monstrous personality was a byproduct of its allure, while Kashfi’s troubled life reveals the price paid by those who step incautiously into the fake plastic world of the big studios.’
Chris Moss, New Welsh Reader
‘Intriguing... Enthralling... a fascinating tale that examines in detail the life of
Anna Kashfi and her familial heritage, one which stretches back to India
under the British Empire and on into a drug-crazed lifestyle during the sixties
and seventies in America. From Wales to Hollywood. From suicide attempts,
to murder, and imprisonment. There is so much in the story it could easily be
fiction. It’s not. At least not what comes to us from Sarah Broughton’s detailed
and meticulous research.’ Aled Smith, Wales Arts Review
‘Glamorous and gritty by turns... an absorbing and entirely fascinating read...’
Mab Jones, Buzz
‘Compulsive... A real page turner...’ Andrew Davies
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Broughton has worked in the television industry for the last two decades. Her company, Martha Stone Productions, made the recent BBC 4 documentary Andrew Davies: Rewriting the Classics – and has various other film and television projects in development. Parthian published Sarah’s first novel, Other Useful Numbers which will be re-issued in the Parthian Modern Classics series in 2021.