“May 1989… the media had the chance to capture the physical and metaphorical equivalent of Moby Dick. The great, elusive and reclusive Marlon Brando made himself available after his son Christian was arrested for shooting his sister's lover to death at Brando's house— in the same compound where Jack Nicholson lived…
"It was an incredible Hollywood story, containing a turbulent family saga, mental illness, sex, B-grade hangers-on, whispers of incest, death and, standing at a bank of microphones outside the courthouse in Santa Monica, Brando himself..."
--Tabloid Baby, page 207
"It was an incredible Hollywood story, containing a turbulent family saga, mental illness, sex, B-grade hangers-on, whispers of incest, death and, standing at a bank of microphones outside the courthouse in Santa Monica, Brando himself..."
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Christian Brando was a sad lost soul with a dangerous mean streak who happened to be at the center of a long-running landmark tabloid television story, with noirish blondes and Chinatown secrets, back in the day when children of little accomplishment got attention if they were the sons of daughters of people of great accomplishment, and their lack of accomplishment was pitied not celebrated. The folks behind the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version were working in television at the time-- some of them in news-- but most of them weren’t in tabloid, and if they were, they missed the lessons.
Christian’s sister Cheyenne committed suicide a few years after he was sent away for manslaughter. Christian, whose childhood made Britney Spears' kids look like William and Harry, stayed lost and for a while he got lost, only to turn up in the Robert Blake murder trial with a whole lot less reflected stardom. He died today at 49, of pneumonia.
Good lord. This was a handsome man. A tortured man. I didn't know....
ReplyDeleteAll of the things that weighed him down in this life are far far away from him now. He is with his dad and his sister and many others that left this world before him, like his good friend Bill Cable..... he is free now! Free from addiction and alcoholism and his broken heart is made whole. And now come the vultures to pick his bones! Ex-wife Deborah tried to claim the body when it was at the morgue and his worthless absentee mother has decided that NOW after 40-plus years of the worst kind of parenting, that she will now be responsible for all the decisions concerning his remains and his estate (interpret: $$$), and his poor common-law wife Donna is devastated but probably will get shut-out of any and all proceedings because after all she was only the one who took care of him and looked after him and put up with him these past few years and THAT couldn't have been easy, even though she loved him very much ..... THANK GOD he is far, far away from the ensuing insanity and selfishness and greed.... Rest in peace, CB.
ReplyDeleteVery handsome and tortured soul. What can you say for a worthwhile person who went down the wrong path. He deserved better than what he got. Thank God he is at rest.
ReplyDeleteIt can't really have success, I feel so.
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