Left: Brando, in a candid shot that Lawrence Grobel took during their days together on the actor’s island not far north of Tahiti. Right: Grobel and a mournful Pacino confer at the actor’s home in Sneden’s Landing, New York, which was sometimes referred to as Hollywood on the Hudson.BRANDO: LAWRENCE GROBEL. GROBEL AND PACINO: HARVEY WANG.

The Secret Lives of Brando, Pacino, Dolly Parton, and More

For decades, celebrity interviewer Lawrence Grobel has kept a meticulous diary, chronicling his surprising and sometimes maddening experiences with legends of the screen. He’s never published it—until now.

BY LAWRENCE GROBEL

7 July 2025

1977: Dreaming of Brando

NOVEMBER 3

First contact with Brando. At least, close. Got his secretary/assistant’s number. So, I called. She said that Marlon would do this, and that it should be about the Indians. He was back East but back next week. She would give him my number and he’d get back to me. I said, or else I’ll call him.

Donald Sutherland / ‘We had such a deep, sublime chemistry’

 

Donald Shutherland
Fellini´s Casanova

‘We had such a deep, sublime chemistry’

Elliott Gould, co-star, M*A*S*H (1970), Little Murders (1971) and S*P*Y*S (1974)

24 June 2024

Donald was the best partner in movies I ever had. We were brothers and we loved each other. We had such a deep, sublime chemistry. There was nothing intellectual about it, just this amazing natural harmony. I first met him in the commissary at 20th Century Fox when Robert Altman told us to have lunch together after I’d been cast in M*A*S*H. At first I thought: I don’t think this guy likes me. But it was just the opposite. The thing was: we were such opposites. I’m a Jew from Brooklyn and he was a Canadian from Nova Scotia. But it was perfection: never any conflict, just bread and butter – a relationship that felt like a miracle.