Brando co wrote a book on a pirate ...

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Little more than a year after Marlon Brando's death, US publisher Alfred Knopf plans to put out a novel that the screen legend co-authored 30 years ago about a pirate on the South Seas.

Fan-Tan, which began life as a film treatment, will be published in early September, adding another facet to the legacy of the reclusive Brando who died on July 1, last year.

Described on the Knopf website as a "rollicking, swashbuckling, delectable romp of a novel," Fan-Tan was written by Brando in the 1970s together with the screenwriter and director Donald Cammell, who committed suicide in 1996.

It tells the tale of Anatole "Annie" Doultry, an eccentric, physically imposing, early 20th century pirate and his adventures on the high seas from the Philippines to Shanghai.

The hero's character and his penchant for Asian woman bear more than a passing resemblance to his celebrity creator, according to Kathy Zuckerman, the Knopf publicist in charge of the title.

"It is apparently autobiographical ... certainly the personality. You can almost hear Brando's voice in the narration," said Zuckerman, who insisted that the novel was more that just a mere curiosity.

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"Of course, it's enhanced by its celebrity authorship, but it definitely works on its own as a pirate tale set in the 20s," she said.

The industry magazine Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying "enthralled readers will be swinging from the rigging along with the rest of the pirates in this rollicking high-seas saga".

In its submitted form, the novel lacked an ending and a final chapter was provided by film historian David Thomson, who also edited the book.

"It wasn't complete, but there was an outline for the ending. It just had to be put into prose form," Zuckerman said.

Brando met Cammell, a painter, in Paris in 1957 where he was filming The Young Lions.

Cammell later moved into film, and is best known for co-directing with Nicolas Roeg the 1970 movie Performance starring Mick Jagger.

The two began Fan-Tan as a potential screenplay but, at Cammell's suggestion, eventually turned it into a novel.

At one point they received a $US100,000 ($A131,561) advance, but personal rifts between the authors hampered publication.

Following Brando's death, the manuscript was offered to Knopf by the Brando and Cammell estates.

- AFP

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Brando's take on the pirates

August 3, 2005

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Scarcely a year after Marlon Brando's death at 80, the detritus of his fiercely guarded private life bubbles to the surface. In June there was an auction of his personal effects, a grab-bag of bizarre and often silly objects.

Now there is another odd blast from his past. Fan-Tan is a film treatment-turned-novel about pirates in the South Seas that he wrote in the 1970s with a filmmaker, Donald Cammell.

After kicking around for nearly 30 years, the novel is being published next month by Alfred A. Knopf, edited by the film historian David Thomson.

Publishers Weekly has given Fan-Tan, the name of a Chinese game of chance, a starred review, predicting "enthralled readers will be swinging from the rigging along with the rest of the pirates in this rollicking high-seas saga".

The novel offers a singular insight into Brando's fantasy life. "Look at the central character. You can see Brando in it," said Sonny Mehta, Knopf's editor-in-chief.

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The hero is a male adventurer named Annie Doultry. Annie (from Anatole) is overweight, mischievous, sensual and attracted to Asian women. The novel is set in the 1920s. Annie is jailed in Hong Kong for gun-running. After his release, he falls for a beautiful female pirate, Madame Lai Choi San, who is based on a real figure. Madame Lai entices Annie into stealing silver from a British ship, which leads to pitched battles and pirate raids.