Brad Darrach (real name Henry Bradford Darrach Jr.; 1921–1997) was a journalist and film critic. A 1942 graduate of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, he joined

Time Inc. Time Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake ''Time'', ''Sports Illu ...

in 1945 after working for ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by T ...

'' and the ''

Providence Journal ''The Providence Journal'', colloquially known as the ''ProJo'', is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspape ...

''. He wrote for Time Inc. magazines including ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'', ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'' and ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

''. During a career which spanned the 1940s to the 1990s, he profiled such notables as Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra,

Fred Astaire Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, choreographer, actor, and singer. He is often called the greatest dancer in Hollywood film history. Astaire's career in stage, film, and tele ...

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...

Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and come ...

Bill Cosby William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...

and

Miss Piggy Miss Piggy is one of the Muppet characters known for her breakout role in Jim Henson's ''The Muppet Show''. Since her debut in 1976, Miss Piggy has been notable for her temperamental diva superstar personality, tendency to use French phrases i ...

. His 1955 ''Time'' cover story on

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

, 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 The Hope Diamond is a diamond originally extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India. It is blue in color due to trace amounts of boron. Its exceptional size has revealed new information about the formation of diamonds. ...

in hi
hand
Darrach's work is widely anthologized. His 1975

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

interview with

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...

Darrach, B. Playboy Magazine (copy at The Daily Beast) February, 1975
/ref> (which won a Playboy Non-fiction Award) is reprinted in

Gene Shalit Eugene Shalit (born March 25, 1926) is an American retired journalist, television personality, Film criticism, film and Literary criticism, book critic and author. After starting to work part-time on NBC's ''Today (American TV program), The Toda ...

's ''Laughing Matters''. His reporting for ''Playboy'' on the 1972

Bobby Fischer Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 1 ...

- Boris Spassky

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

match is included as one of four “Best of the Best” in

David Halberstam David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and late ...

'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, includin
this
description of

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

: "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 John Herbert Gleason (February 26, 1916June 24, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer, and conductor known affectionately as "The Great One." Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was know ...

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."

Bibliography

Books

*''Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World'' (

Stein & Day Stein and Day, Inc. was an American publishing company founded by Sol Stein and his wife Patricia Day in 1962. Stein was both the publisher and the editor-in-chief. The firm was based in New York City, and was in business for 27 years, until clos ...

1974)

Movies

*
The Search for Solutions
' (1979) (Screenwriter)

Articles

*''The Day Bobby Blew It'' in Halberstam, D., ''The Best American Sportswriting of the Century'' (Houghton Mifflin 1999) (originally in ''Playboy'') *Interview with Mel Brooks in Shalit, G., ''Laughing Matters: a Celebration of American Humor'' (Doubleday 1987) (originally in ''Playboy'')

(profile of Frank Sinatra originally in ''

'') *''A Perky Porker Hits Hollywood and Leaves 'Em Squealing,'' in ''The Best of People Weekly: The First Decade'' (Fawcett 1984) *''Ulysses'', ''Marat/Sade'' and ''The Underground Film'' in Schickel, R. & Simon, J., ''Film 67/68'' (Simon & Schuster 1968) (originally in ''Time'')

ASIN Asin Thottumkal (born 26 October 1985), known mononymously as Asin, is a former Indian actress who appeared predominantly in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu films. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. She has received three Filmfare Awards. She ...

B000H7N1KC *''Living With Liz, Life Magazine,'' February, 1992 (profile of Elizabeth Taylor and then-husband Larry Fortensky) *''Send in the Clowns: For Desperately Ill Children, Laughter Can be The Best Medicine, Life Magazine,'' August, 1990 *
A Different Kind of Superstar, Life Magazine
'' December 1995 (profile of Hakeem Olajuwon) *
Landon, M. as told to Darrach, B. Michael Landon Discusses His Illness, Life Magazine
'' May, 1991 *

'' June 20, 1988 (profile of

Lily Tomlin Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. She started her career as a stand-up comedian as well as performing off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the varie ...

and Bette Midler) *
The Triumph of Archie Leach, People Weekly
'' December 15, 1986 (profile of

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

) *
My Romance with Marilyn Monroe, People Weekly
'' July 2, 1984 *

'' December 12, 1983 *

'' September 3, 1979 (profiling

) *
Leonard Nimoy Beams Himself Aboard 'Equus' and Out from Under Mr. Spock's Pointy Ears, People Weekly
,'' July 25, 1977 *

'' December 8, 1975 *''[http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20065795,00.html The All-American Actor The Rocky Mountain High Life of Robert Redford includes Acting, Producing, Environmentalistism and Maybe Politics?, People Weekly],'' October 27, 1975 *
Back to the Gore of Yore, Time
'' July 5, 1971 (profiling

Doc Savage Doc Savage is a fictional character of the competent man hero type, who first appeared in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Real name Clark Savage Jr., he is a doctor, scientist, adventurer, detective, and polymath who "rights w ...

)

References

*''Lovinger, J. Farewell to a Writer's Writer, Life Magazine,'' December, 1997 *
Ellman, D. Publisher's Letter, People Weekly, December 7, 1987
' *

' *''Time, Sept. 20, 1963'' *''Time, Oct. 31, 1955'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Darrach, Brad 1921 births 1997 deaths American chess writers American film critics American male journalists American sportswriters 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers University of Pennsylvania alumni