Fame, money, privilege… Kidnapping, drug abuse, and murder. Being born into Hollywood
Royalty isn't all it's cracked up to be, just ask Christian Brando.
Christian Brando might have always been destined for a turbulent life, but it didn't help that even
his name was a point of contention. According to Marlon Brando's biographer, Christian was
named after French actor Christian Marquand, a close friend of Marlon's for many years. But,
Christian's mother, actress Anna Kashfi, was suspicious of her husband's relationship with
the handsome actor, finally becoming convinced the two men were having a sexual affair after
observing how affectionate they were when Marquand stayed at the couple's Los Angles home. According
to Christian's ex-wife, Deborah Presley, this so enraged Kashfi that she would only refer to
Christian by his middle name, Devi, while his father would only call him Chris or Christian.
"He said, of course, we have to get married, you know. And then, of course,
into the marriage it was hectic, it was really bad he was seeing other people, men included."
Brando and Kashfi were married in 1957, but in 1959, a year after Christian's birth,
the couple divorced and immediately began a vicious custody battle. Christian lived
with his mother for the first five years after the divorce,
but due to her drug and alcohol abuse, her custody rights were revoked. Christian
was raised by nannies for the next eight years, then was sent to a boarding school.
By the time he came to live with his father, Christian was an angry and
rebellious teen with Marlon describing him as, quote, "just a basket case of
emotional disorders." Christian found little comfort in his life with Brando, who was known
for his many relationships and many children. According to The Guardian, Christian once said,
"The family kept changing shape. I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, 'Who are you?"
In 1972 when Chrisitan was only 13, he was expelled from school for burning down his
dorm. His mother, who was sharing custody with Brando at the time, picked him up and took him
with her across the border into Mexico. As the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 1987,
she left him at a hotel with a friend and returned to Los Angeles. When she returned,
she discovered both Christian and her friend were gone. What happened next is unclear,
but according to Kashfi, she called the police and reported that her son had been kidnapped.
Brando was in France filming "Last Tango in Paris" when he was informed of Christian's
disappearance and hired a private detective to search for the boy. The detective finally found
Christian living in a tent with a group of men and women. According to The Guardian,
the group told the police that Kashfi had offered them $10,000 to hide him. As a result,
Marlon was awarded sole custody of his son and took the boy to France,
but the incident left a mark on Christian. He developed a life-long fascination with
firearms and began buying guns because he was so terrified of being kidnapped again.
Although the world loved Marlon Brando for his movie star charisma,
and talent Christian found his father's big personality difficult. Per The Guardian,
film producer Carmine De Benedittis once observed,
"When Christian is near his father, he seems to shrink. [...] He seems to be
crushed by the force of his father's character."
Marlon was the absentee father, gone a lot of the time, and Brando's biographer added
that he alternated between lecturing Christian and giving him expensive
gifts. After Christian was arrested as a teenager for firing his rifle
at an abandoned building, he phoned one of Marlon's employees and begged him for help,
explaining that his father would "kill him" and that Marlon frequently hit him.
"Because I know, in my heart, now you might think,
well every father is going to believe that his son is right, Christian never lied to me…Once."
Father and son had various conflicts throughout Christian's adolescence,
especially when Marlon set up recording equipment in his son's bedroom. Christian
also began secretly sleeping with his father's girlfriend, Jill Banner.
Christian first started taking LSD at age 13, according to the Los Angeles Times,
and this early experimentation with drugs led to a lifetime of substance abuse. In
spite of Brando's best attempts to keep his son away from drugs,
Christian could always find a fix by stealing marijuana from neighbors like Jack Nicholson.
His father put him through a detox program at St. John's Hospital,
but Christian was thrown out after three days. His addictions soon caught up with him,
however, when he was later forced to join Alcoholics Anonymous after his dependence
on cocaine spiraled into a $500-per-day habit. During his 1991 criminal trial,
Christian spoke about how his mother affected his childhood through her addictions, stating,
"I grew up with an extremely violent mother. She drank and we had a lot
of problems. My whole family except my father is alcoholic."
The Brando family's world turned upside down on May 16, 1990, when Christian killed Dag
Drollet the partner of his half-sister, Cheyenne Brando, who was eight months pregnant at the
time. According to The Guardian, Cheyenne called Christian earlier in the evening to complain about
her boyfriend's violent actions toward her. This conversation angered Christian so much,
he was motivated to confront Drollet later that night at Marlon Brando's Beverly Hills home.
According to sources, Christian said he had only wanted to intimidate Drollet with his handgun,
and that he never meant to kill him. He later told the press that he and Drollet
fought over the gun and it accidentally went off fatally wounding Drollet.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in January of 1991, Christian agreed to plead guilty to
charges of manslaughter instead of being tried for first-degree murder. The prosecutors offered
Christian a plea deal after French authorities deemed Cheyenne "mentally incompetent," which
led several judges to deny the prosecutor's requests to have her testify. During sentencing,
Marlon took responsibility for perhaps failing as a father and pleaded for reduced time for his son.
"What if your daughter was shot… or your son… was shot by some gang member? What would you do?"
After pleading guilty, Christian was sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter, but he was
released due to his "good behavior" after serving only five years. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be
the last time Christian was to have a brush with the law. A few years later, he became embroiled
in another murder scandal, this time for the murder of his own girlfriend, Bonny Lee Bakley.
Christian and Bakley were still in a relationship when she began seeing actor Robert Blake in 1999.
When Bonnie Lee discovered she was pregnant she originally believed Christian was the father,
and per TrueTV they named the baby Christian Shannon Brando. But later, Bakley admitted to
being unsure who the baby's father really was. This prompted Blake to request a paternity test,
which revealed that he was actually the baby's father. Upon making that discovery,
he and Bakley were married, and the baby was renamed, Rose Lenore Blake.
In May 2001, Robert Blake was accused of killing Bakley while she sat in
their car outside of an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, Christian became implicated in
the case during a pre-trial hearing, when according to CNN, an employee of Brando's
claimed that Christian said to a hitman, quote, "we need to put a bullet into Bonny Lee Bakley's
head." In a recorded conversation with Bakley that played during Blake's hearing, Brando told her,
"You're lucky somebody ain't out there to put a bullet in your head."
But, in 2004, a judge dismissed his link to the case as speculation,
and Christian invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when he finally testified in 2005.
In October 2004,
Christian married Deborah Presley, a woman who claimed to be the illegitimate daughter
of Elvis Presley. According to The Guardian, the marriage only lasted three months,
ending when authorities pressed charges against Christian for spousal abuse after Presley was
admitted to a hospital with injuries she claimed were caused by Brando. According to the BBC,
Christian was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading no contest to two
of the charges. He was also ordered to receive treatment for alcohol and drug abuse and to
attend a domestic abuse prevention program. In 2005, Presley once again sued Brando for
domestic violence, contending he physically abused and threatened her. But this time,
Brando countersued, alleging it was Presley who had broken into his home and severely beaten him
because he wanted to annul their marriage just weeks after they exchanged their wedding vows.
In January 2008, Christian was admitted to the intensive care unit of Hollywood
Presbyterian Medical Center suffering from pneumonia. After the doctors placed him on
a ventilator, he lay in a coma for two weeks until he finally passed away from
his illness. He was only 49 years old, and at the time of his death,
and was listed by the hospital as an "indigent". Friends of the Brando family said that Marlon,
who had died in 2004, would have been horrified at the circumstances of his oldest child's death.
Referring to the custody battle between Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi,
George Englund, one of Brando's oldest friends, told The Guardian,
"There's an old saying: 'When two elephants fight, the grass is wounded.' That's the way I
see Christian. He was the wounded grass on which two ferocious elephants fought all those years."
Sadly, Christian's death didn't bring an end to the chaos that had followed him throughout his
life. His surviving relatives argued about how his lifestyle had led to his pneumonia,
with his ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, half-siblings, and mother continuing to fight over the funeral
arrangements, including trying to decide whether or not to do an autopsy. The Los
Angeles County coroner's office eventually did perform one, but it proved to be inconclusive.
In the end, it was Christian's ex-wife, Deborah Presley, who appeared to be the most disturbed
by the circumstances of his death, stating that Marlon always wanted Christian to have a roof over
his head as well as health insurance. She claimed that Christian had always been his father's top
priority, because, as she said, "Marlon knew Christian couldn't take care of himself."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).