You’d think a headline like “Marlon Brando’s Little Black Book” would have caught my eye, but I missed this article on Slate when it was published in 2013.

Marlon Brando dropped this battered address book on the stage of New York’s Barrymore Theatre while appearing in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949.

The loss of the book must have been significant to the young actor. Brando scrawled on the flyleaf: “On bended knee I beg you to return this. I lost eight others already and if I lose this I’ll just drop dead!”

Slate, “Marlon Brando’s Little Black Book,” by Rebecca Onion

I’d love to see more of this little address book, or the eight others that Brando says he lost! It is part of the collection at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin, which sounds like an amazing collection that must include a lot of other interesting notebooks.