Marie Brenner is the definitive investigative journalist, and a bestselling author. She has published nine books, among them are: On the Border August 2009, Apple and Oranges May 2009, Kay Thompson’s Eloise 2005, Great Dames:What I learned from Older Women 2000, House of Dreams 1988, Intimate Distance 1983, Rookie 1980, Going Hollywood: An Insider’s Look at Power and Pretense in the Movie Business 1978 and Tell me Everything in 1976.Her work with major magazines is prolific. She joined the staff of Vanity Fair in 1985. Since then she has been a contributing editor to both "New York," and The New Yorker magazines, and her articles have also been featured in Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine. Her work was so resonant and important that it's crossover appeal to the a broader film audience was not lost on Hollywood.
Ms. Brenner's 1996 expose' of the tobacco industry for Vanity Fair was the inspiration for a highly successful feature film released in 1999. Her essay entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much was adapted to film as The Insider, starring Golden Globe winner & Oscar winner Russell Crowe, and Emmy Award-Winning, Golden Globe and Oscar winner, Al Pacino, under the direction of Oscar award winner Michael Mann. Credited with both popular and critical success, The Insider was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
This timely story chronicled Jeffrey Wigand's dangerous struggle to reveal the dark secrets of a corrupt corporate culture. The shocking truth changed the way Americans viewed old corporate America, and provided an ominous foreshadowing of the corporate scandals to follow. It would be the first domino in the chain of scandals of marking what the end of mainstream America's blind faith in institutions like Enron, Worldcom, and Wall Street. Three years later Brenner's 2002 Vanity Fair article, "The Enron Wars," made national news when Senator Peter Fitzgerald used it as source material when questioning witnesses called to testify before the senate committee.
Ms.Brenner’s article “Erotomania” became the Lifetime channel movie Obsessed, starring Jenna Elfman, Sam Robards and Lisa Edestein. The word on the street has it that her article, In the Kingdom of Big Sugar, is being reworked for the big screen. Media sources are not sure if either Oscar and Emmy award winning director Alex Gibney for Tribeca Films, or Oscar winning actress director Jodi Foster for Universal Pictures under the banner Sugar Kings will prevail. Either camp is capable of producing a worthy tribute.
Her talent and achievements are extensive and widely recognized. She is the winner of six Front Page awards for her journalism, and was awarded the Frank Luther Mott Kappa Tau Alpha Award for research.
The playwright Alfred Uhry who’s first non-musical play Driving Miss Daisy has been commissioned to write a play adaption of Ms. Brenner’s book “Apples & Oranges,” for a Manhattan Theater Club production. Artistic director, Lynn Meadow will direct the play, at a date to be announced.
Mr. Uhry who won a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award for the stage and screen version if “Driving Miss Daisy” is also a Tony Award-Winner for “The Last Night of Ballyhoo” in 1997.
Her book, “Apple and Oranges” is about Ms. Brenner’s difficult and ultimately moving relationship with her brother and her attempts to forge new bonds as adults while she puts her life on hold to help him after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Photo of Marie Brenner by Kate Burton
To learn more about Marie Brenner please visit her website.
To purchase her books please visit Amazon and Barnes & Noble
