Filed under: Abduction, Alcoholism, Bad Children of Divorce, Birth Order, Custody, Mentally Ill parents, Parents and their Dates, Suicide, money, self-absorbed parents, separate households
Marlon Brando’s troubled Son, Christian, passed away yesterday in Los Angeles, California. He had been hospitalized for pneumonia. Christian was 49 years old. May he Rest in Peace.
Christian was the eldest of Brando’s nine children. His Mother, Anna Kashfi, was also an actress. She separated from Brando when Christian was 5 months old and the couple divorced on Apr. 22, 1959 (can’t vouch for any dates here). The couple remained in a custody dispute over Christian until 1972 when Kashfi abducted the 13 year boy and took him to Mexico. She was sent to jail and subsequently lost all chance for custody. His Mother had drug and alcohol problems.
Christian dropped out of High School and held minor acting jobs. As can be expected he had emotional problems and ended up killing his sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend while arguing over whether the boyfriend had beaten his pregnant half-sister. He spent 5 years in jail for the murder. Cheyenne gave birth to the baby but hanged herself at Age 25. Christian was recently divorced for violent behavior to his wife and her daughter.
This is a description of his childhood from www.astrotheme.com. (Date of parents’ separation is different from one mentioned in obituary in newspaper (www.mercurynews.com):
Kashfi turned to barbiturates and alcohol and the couple divorced a year after Christian’s birth in May 1959. Christian was passed between the two as their relationship became more and more hostile and abusive. The author Nellie Bly claimed that “When the Brandos quarreled, Anna displayed a ‘frightening’ rage,” and that “Anna left baby Christian alone in her car parked on Wilshire Boulevard while she confronted Brando in his office, ‘beating at him with her fists, in a frenzy of rage.” There was a protracted custody battle between Kashfi and Brando until he eventually won custody of Christian aged 13 after an incident when Christian was taken out of school to Mexico by Kashfi without Brando’s consent.
Christian had little good contact with his father, being raised by nannies and servants, moving between Hollywood and the private island near Tahiti. A reluctant witness to his father’s sexual exploits and bizarre behavior, Christian complained that:
“The family kept changing shape, I’d sit down at the breakfast table and say, “Who are you?””
