Brando Sets Off Bidding War : Books: Actor’s plan to write autobiography has publishers rushing to make offer he can’t refuse. A $2-million proposal has been rejected.

Actor Marlon Brando’s announcement that his as yet unwritten memoirs are on the auction block has set off a frenzied multimillion-dollar bidding war among publishers worldwide.

The 66-year-old star is peddling his autobiography, he said, “to set the record right.” The prospect of a tell-all from one of the finest actors of the film age, after decades of guarding his privacy, has publishers scrambling to make him an offer he can’t refuse--something in the seven-figure range. Already, a hurried offer of $2 million has been rejected as too low.

Brando’s London lawyer, who is handling the sale, is summoning interested parties to cross the Atlantic Ocean for discussions--and a possible “chat” with the fledgling author.

Attorney Belinda Frixou, his general adviser for the past decade, denied that Brando needs the money to pay defense fees for his son, whose murder trial begins next month. Legal costs for Christian Brando, 32, eldest of Brando’s nine children, could run as high as $1 million. He is charged with the shooting death of his half sister’s lover last May, but maintains it was an accident.

So why an autobiography now from the reluctant celebrity figure who complains of intrusions stemming from the shooting at his Mulholland Drive estate?

“There’ve been so many different books about him, unauthorized biographies, that it is about time to set the record right and give everybody the correct version,” Frixou said. An unauthorized biography in the works for several years will be coming out soon.

“Plus he’s in the mood to write,” Frixou said.

Although Brando himself was characteristically unavailable for comment and few, if any, editors have seen the outline he has penned, Frixou said the actor does not need an agent or a ghostwriter.

“He’s doing it totally himself, he’s a very good writer and has done scripts before. . . . He’s written passages and poems and is a writer I would say of--who would I compare him to? I simply can’t--descriptive, floral style,” Frixou said. “Very, very poetic.

“He is writing and many publishers are making bids for the rights,” Frixou said, adding that she is “not at liberty to disclose (dollar) amounts to third parties until it is decided. . . . Publishers worldwide have called me with offers.”

Brando did not hawk his book proposal the conventional way. Instead, he telephoned Daily Variety columnist Army Archerd with the news that his memoirs were for sale and then sat back as news spread through carpeted publishing suites and editors’ lunch haunts. Within hours, publishing houses were seeking his representatives like ants drawn to crumbs.

Brando has promised more than crumbs: “I have no inhibitions,” he told Archerd. “There isn’t anything I won’t go into. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Even though it’s a world of bruises.”

While representatives of some publishing houses involved in the bidding asked not to be identified, Warner Books’ Ellen Herrick said her firm’s $2-million offer was rebuffed as too low.

Likewise, Pocket Books and Viking Penguin said that they are involved in the competition, although both said any discussion of the proposed Brando project would be premature.

“The fact that he would be willing to do a book is itself interesting enough for a publisher to want to pursue it,” said Jack Romanos, president of Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster’s mass-market publications division. He said any offer would be subject to what he called “a mutually satisfactory editorial conversation with Mr. Brando. . . . We would want to sit down with him to find out exactly what he wants to say and how he wants to say it.”

Frixou said she is setting up London meetings with publishers for late this week and early next. Then, she said, “I will decide with him which ones he’d like to chat to. It won’t be just the largest amount but the publishing company and its reputation. He’ll meet with two or three to get a feel for them.”

She said all negotiations are being handled from London, adding that Brando is not the sort of man to go knocking on doors. “He has other people to run around for him,” Frixou said.

The actor is “anxious to get going” and plans to begin writing in earnest “in the next few weeks,” she said, despite the time and emotional pressures to come from his son’s Oct. 9 trial.

“He is a remarkable man. When you’ve got something tragic (happening) you can still sit and write. He’ll have a few hours during the day.”

Publishers who want to contact Brando directly will have to overcome his penchant for privacy. His estate overlooking Coldwater Canyon is guarded by an electronic gate, his phone number is unpublished, and he lists neither agent nor publicist. Asked by Daily Variety about the difficulty publishers might have in reaching him, the actor laughed and said, “All voices bounce back in this canyon.”

Times staff writer Elizabeth Mehren contributed to this story.