I love him on South Park.
Posted on 06/27/2004 1:12:37 AM PDT by MadIvan
HE WAS one of the most influential actors of his generation, a lion on stage and screen. But the ailing Marlon Brando now lives alone in a one-bedroom bungalow, surviving with the support of a state pension and relying on the taxpayer to help him to care for his autistic young son.
The twilight existence of the Hollywood star is chronicled in a forthcoming biography that claims the 80-year-old actor owes banks nearly £11m and has grown so wary of debt collectors that he has hidden the Oscars he won for On the Waterfront and The Godfather.
To make matters worse, Cristina Ruiz, his former maid, is threatening to reopen a £55m “palimony” suit, claiming Brando has broken agreements signed last year to pay £5,500 a month support for three children, including Timothy, their autistic 10-year-old.
Until recently Brando could be spotted raiding ice-cream freezers at a supermarket near his Los Angeles home, having slipped away from nurses who chained his refrigerator door to prevent binge-eating. However, since he was struck by pneumonia in 2002 he has been seen in a wheelchair breathing through an oxygen mask.
For nearly half a century Brando has lived at 12900 Mulholland Drive, a mountain top address he shares with his neighbour, Jack Nicholson. He has discouraged visitors, prompting previous biographers to describe his home, Frangipani, as “the mansion in the sky”.
Court records obtained by The Sunday Times show that, in Brando’s own words, Frangipani is a one-bedroomed bungalow with a den converted from a garage. At 2,000 sq ft, it is about the same size as a four-bedroomed house in Britain. Aaron Spelling, the producer of Charlie’s Angels, lives nearby in a 56,000 sq ft house.
A recent visitor to Frangipani described it as claustrophobic, dominated by two shabby sofas and 1970s-era bead curtains, with burnt-out light bulbs. Its shrubby undergrowth is kept at bay by a gardener employed by Brando’s old friend Nicholson.
In Brando in Twilight, due to be published this autumn, Patricia Ruiz, a Los Angeles author who says she is not “directly” related to Brando’s former lover from Guatemala, writes that the actor was always eccentric but relatively happy and wealthy. This changed in 1990, when his eldest son Christian shot and killed Dag Drollet, the boyfriend of his half-sister Cheyenne Brando, in the sitting room at Frangipani.
Brando, who had been renting the house, bought it several months later for £79,000 but borrowed heavily from banks to pay for his son’s trial. It ended with Christian going to jail for manslaughter and the actor £4m in debt, Ruiz claims. Cheyenne hanged herself in April 1995, a year before Christian’s release.
Although Brando was given a then-record £2.5m advance for 15 minutes of screen time in the 1978 film Superman, his career has since slumped. He has earned £3m since 1998 but spent £4m on Cristina Ruiz. Another £1m has gone on maintaining his South Pacific island.
Brando told LA’s superior court last year that his income consists primarily of a £3,200 a month pension from the Screen Actors Guild union and a £1,000-a-month state pension. “I received $50,000 total compensation for my work on The Godfather and do not receive any other residual income from any other film other than for Apocalypse Now.”
He said he could not afford life insurance and his own house was smaller than the £700,000 home he bought and renovated for his former maid, who then “cruelly manipulated” him and refused to let him see Timothy or his other children, Ninna and Myles.
The actor said that, in 1967, after filming Mutiny on the Bounty, he paid $200,000 (£110,000) for an atoll 20 miles north of Tahiti and blamed French regulations for his failure to turn this into an upscale eco-resort. Today the near-deserted island — valued by local estate agents at £1m — is a drain on his resources.
Patricia Ruiz claims Michael Jackson, a longtime friend of Brando, offered to buy the island, but ran into difficulties before a deal could be signed.
Accountants who have studied the actor’s finances suspect he may have glossed over other holdings but do not doubt he has fallen on hard times.
One accountant to the stars said he was only one of a number of household names from the 1950s and 1960s facing an uncertain old age.
A spokesman declined to comment on Brando’s financial affairs, but pointed out that he is returning to work, providing the voice-over for an animated character in a comedy called Big Bug Man.
Shatner sucked too .
Snerk... coffee everywhere.
Lets take up a collection for the poor bastard.
other than Godfather, Brando's best movies were for women,, I'll take Clint, Charles and Steve anyday,,,,,,,,,,,,Brando has been a first class prick his whole life , he's reaping what he has sowed,,,,,,,,,
Bravo! Well said!
Guys and Dolls was his best. He played a "character" -- no someone who the actor had to find "from within".
The Godfather(s) belong to Pacino, no one else.
"Brando has been a first class prick his whole life , he's reaping what he has sowed,,,,,,,,,"
Yup. Kharma baby. What goes around, comes around!
"Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la...
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days..."
--Mary Hopkins, "Those Were The Days.
Oh!..That was Him??
HA!HA! LOL! :))...Makes sense "The Island of Dr. Moreau"...the Elephant and the Pig.
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Let's be fair, the typhoon that wrecked the sets and Martin Sheen's heart attack had a bit more to do with Apocolypse Later's scheduling problems.
I agree; I never liked his acting. It's not the Stanislavki method though; Montgomery Clift and others seemed to do ok with this technique. I always got the impression that Brando was working hard to be Brando in his pictures.
I hear Mike Tyson is looking for a room mate.
lmao! you owe me a keyboard!
Sir:
You clearly have a severely out-of-calibration sarcasm detector. Please take it for servicing immediately, if not sooner.
Also, go get that coffee, if that's the problem.
Let us not overlook "Last Tango in Paris", which brought anal sex out of the closet.
I think Brando was a fine actor in his day, he may have become self-indulgent, but so do many, many Hollywood stars of much, much lesser talent (paging Sharon Stone, Sharon Stone to the white courtesy phone).
I don't know why but I think riches to rags stories are almost more interesting than rags to riches.
I kinda like it the way it is, Sarcasm is not always understood by those who are the target of it, mine isnt and neither is yours. Thats what makes it fun.
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