Hollywood & Crime: The Trial of Christian Brando, Starring his Father Marlon

Marlon Brando was many things in life, but father of the year was not one of them. He had at least 11 children, three of whom were adopted, but rumours persist that there are many others he never publicly acknowledged. He was a white guy who seemed to prefer women of colour, particularly Latina and indigenous women, and he seldom treated them well. He was emotionally abusive to Rita Moreno and threw chairs at her during his many fits of rage. He was briefly engaged to a 19-year-old when he was 30, but broke it off when he found out his other girlfriend was pregnant. His longest relationship was allegedly with his housekeeper, with whom he had three kids. It was his children who suffered the most from his endless tantrums and fickle behaviour. His eldest son, in particular, was embroiled in a life of familial hostility and manipulation that culminated in a murder trial, one where his father still had to take centre stage.

When Christian Devi Brando was born in 1958, his father was still a massive star. He was an Oscar winner still basking in the glow of being the uber-handsome method actor who had revolutionised the craft in the final days of the studio system. The year before, he’d met Anna Kashfi, an Anglo-Indian actress who had changed her name from Joan O'Callaghan to better fit the "ethnic" demands of the entertainment industry. Her parentage was a hotly discussed issue for decades, with her own mother claiming she wasn’t Indian at all.

She and Brando were a bad match. They were physically and verbally abusive to one another and could barely stand to be in the same room. When Christian was born, things only got worse. They divorced barely a year after his birth, and the custody battle was even more bitter. The case was frequently covered in the press, with Kashfi's drug and alcohol issues being made public. Christian was heavily impacted by the constant back-and-forth shuttling between parents, as well as Anna's own issues.

In 1972, when Christian was a teenager, he was kidnapped by his mother. Initially, Brando denied the claim to the press to keep a lid on it, and Kashfi claimed she had no idea where Christian was. A few days later, an army of private investigators hired by Brando tracked Christian down. He was being kept in a cave near a fishing camp in San Felipe, Mexico. Anna had allegedly offered $10,000 to a gang of hippies to keep him hidden away. Christian was living in a tent, ill with pneumonia. Brando would later describe him as "basket case of emotional disorder" at the time of his disappearance. Within days, Brando was granted sole custody of Christian.

This didn't make Marlon a good dad. Christian would describe him as distant and willing to let a team of nannies and maids do all the hard work of raising him. Christian moved between Hollywood and Tetiʻaroa, his father's private island near Tahiti. Marlon had more and more kids. Christian would later joke, "I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, 'Who are you'?" to these new arrivals. But there was one half-sibling he formed a close relationship with: his sister Cheyenne Brando.

Tarita Cheyenne Brando was one of Marlon's kids with his third wife, Tarita Teriipaia, a French Polynesian actress he met while filming Mutiny on the Bounty. As a kid, Cheyenne was raised in Tahiti and wasn't allowed to visit her dad in America. He claimed it was because he wanted her to be untainted by America's nastiness. "As Tahitians, they are too trusting," he said in 1976. While Cheyenne worshipped her father as a kid, she grew to resent how he treated her and his other many kids like accessories. "He came to the island maybe once a year, but really didn't seem to care whether he saw me or not. He wanted us, but he didn't want us," she said in a 1990 interview.