THE BRANDO FAMILY

Christian Brando, eldest son of the Oscar-winning screen star, Marlon Brando, and Welsh actress Anna Kashfi, died early on Saturday of complications from pneumonia, attorney Bruce Margolin said.

Marlon Brando's Son Dies at 49 in Los Angeles
 Saturday, Jan 26, 2008

Christian Brando, the eldest son of Hollywood icon Marlon Brando who made worldwide news in 1990 by shooting dead his sister's boyfriend, died on Saturday at the age of 49, his lawyer said. His ex-wife, Deborah, told People magazine in a story for their Web site, that he had been hospitalized at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center since January 11 with pneumonia and that he was comatose and on a respirator. "His body was totally compromised," she said. "He'd lived so hard ... this is just so sad."

Representatives for Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center declined to comment.

The roller coaster that was Christian Brando's life began even before his birth in Los Angeles on May 11, 1958.
His famous parents (his mother was tempestuous actress Anna Kashfi) married in 1958, just around the time of his birth. Marlon later claimed that he had married Kashfi only because of the pregnancy and that he had other romantic relationships during the marriage. Kashfi was an abuser of barbiturates and alcohol, and the couple divorced a year after Christian's birth. A lengthy custody battle followed, which was eventually resolved in Marlon Brando's favor after Kashfi took their son out of school to travel to Mexico (when the boy was 13 yrs. old). Christian, the oldest of Brando's 11 biological and adopted children, grew up in both Los Angeles and Tahiti, where his father owned his own island. His father later sired several half-siblings for Christian, among them, a beautiful, but unstable, young half-sister, Cheyenne, with whom Christian was always very close.

In 1990, when she was 20 years old, Cheyenne, together with her Tahitian boyfriend, Dag Drollet, was staying in Los Angeles, residing in her father's mansion on lofty Mulholland Drive. [left]
Cheyenne confided to her older brother that her 26-year-old boyfriend, the father of her unborn child, had been physically abusive to her (though the assertion was never substantiated). Soon afterward, on May 16, 1990, Christian confronted Drollet about the alleged beatings. The confrontation quickly escalated, and the ensuing melee resulted in Drollet being shot dead by Brando, sparking an international media frenzy. Christian Brando's arrest, together with the lurid details of the case, and its celebrity involvement, made for international headlines which continued for months.

Cheyenne was immediately whisked away to a hospital in Tahiti, and was not made available to testify at the many legal hearings before Christian's murder trial. The media attention remained riveted throughout the subsequent legal proceedings, Christian told the Los Angeles Times in a 1991 interview that he never intended to kill Drollet, but that the gun went off accidentally while the two struggled.
             "I just sat there and watched the life go out of this guy," Brando told the newspaper.

Christian Brando eventually pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The intensity of the media coverage was then fueled by Marlon Brando's tearful plea for leniency on his eldest son's behalf, presented in the cramped Southern California courtroom. Despite the tearful pleas from his famed father, Christian was sentenced to a 10 year prison term. He served almost six years behind bars before he was finally released in 1996.

Prior to Christian's release from prison, Cheyenne Brando's troubled young life ended when she committed suicide in 1995. At the age of 25, The young Polynesian beauty, privileged daughter of Marlon Brando, one of the greatest actors of his generation, (winner of 2 Academy Awards for his acclaimed roles in "On the Waterfront" and "The Godfather"), died by hanging herself at her mother's home in Tahiti. Her son, Tuki Brando, was raised in Tahiti by his grandmother, Cheyenne's mother, Tarita. He is now a model for Versace menswear.

Despite Christian's efforts to avoid the Hollywood spotlight after his release from prison (he took a job as a welding instructor at Los Angeles' Pierce College), it wasn't long before he again found himself a featured character in one of Hollywood's most famous murder trials. When Robert Blake's wife, Bonnie Lee Bakely, was murdered at a Studio City restaurant in May, 2001, Blake pointed the finger at Brando, saying that they both were dating Bonnie Lee at the same time. He alleged that Christian had made several threats against her, plus that he was the father of the child that she gave birth to in June, 2000.  She had even named the baby girl, Christian Shannon Brando (the child was later renamed Rose Blake after a paternity test proved that Blake was the biological father). Because Christian Brando had briefly dated Bakely, Blake's defense lawyers suggested that Brando could have been the killer. Brando was never arrested or charged in her death, and L.A. police eventually cleared him of any involvement in the case. After a lengthy, highly publicized murder trial, Blake was acquitted in May 4, 2001. Later, Brando was called as a witness during Blake's subsequent civil trial but he refused to testify and was fined for contempt of court.

His public notoriety was again revived when his famed father died in 2004, at the age of 80. It resurfaced In 2005, when he pleaded guilty to spousal abuse charges involving his then-wife, Deborah, and was placed on probation.