Brad Darrach

Brad Darrach (real name Henry Bradford Darrach Jr.; 1921–1997) was a journalist and film critic. A 1942 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he joined Time Inc. in 1945 after working for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence Journal. He wrote for Time Inc. magazines including Time, Life, People and Sports Illustrated. During a career which spanned the 1940s to the 1990s, he profiled such notables as Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Barbra Streisand, Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Jack Nicholson and Miss Piggy. His 1955 Time cover story on Marilyn Monroe, based on a chaste 10-hour interview in her hotel bed while she was filming Bus Stop, was the first to report on the star’s traumatic childhood; in 1984, he wrote: "Out it came for the first time, the whole hideous mess: the foster homes, the religious sadists who threatened her with hellfire, the child molester who raped her when she was 6. Simply to remember was agony for Marilyn. Sometimes she was racked with sobs; sometimes she choked on anger and disgust. Sometimes tears filled my eyes too." For a 1995 Life Magazine photoshoot with Michelle Pfeiffer, he held the Hope Diamond in his hand.

Darrach’s work is widely anthologized. His 1975 Playboy interview with Mel Brooks[1] (which won a Playboy Non-fiction Award) is reprinted in Gene Shalit’s Laughing Matters. His reporting for Playboy on the 1972 Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky chess match is included as one of four “Best of the Best” in David Halberstam’s Best American Sportswriting of the Century. He succeeded James Agee as Time’s film reviewer; several of his reviews are reprinted in Film 67/68.

The vividness of his writing is notable; his language has appeared in several collections of quotations, including this description of Elvis Presley: "The hair was a Vaseline cathedral, the mouth a touchingly uncertain sneer of allure. One, two-wham! Like a berserk blender the lusty young pelvis whirred and the notorious git-tar slammed forward with a jolt that symbolically deflowered a generation of teenagers and knocked chips off 90 million older shoulders. Then out of the half-melted vanilla face a wild black baritone came bawling in orgasmic lurches. Whu-huh-huh-huh f'the money! Two f'the show! Three t'git riddy naa GO CAAT GO!" This description of Jackie Gleason is also memorable: "Gross in physique, gargantuan in gourmandise, oceanic in liquid capacity, prodigal of purse, a fire hose of libido and a Niagara of comic invention, the man was excess personified and one of the great entertainers of the age."

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References

  1. ↑ Darrach, B. Playboy Magazine (copy at The Daily Beast) February, 1975
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