Marlon Brando’s Son Protected Pregnant Sister & Lost His Freedom — Despite Dad’s $20M Estate, He Ended up Poor

Christian Brando was the eldest of Marlon Brando’s 11 known children. Through the years, the media has used the word “known” to identify his kids, given several rumors of him having more children.

Born on May 11, 1958, Christian Devi Brando was Marlon’s son with his first wife, Anna Kashfi. Marlon’s marriage with Anna was far from conventional.

Even when Anna was pregnant with Christian, she and Marlon were hostile towards one another. Days before their wedding, Marlon discovered that Anna had lied to him about her name and heritage. Anna claimed she was Indian, but she turned out to be Welsh. Her real name was also Joanne O’Callaghan.

To make matters worse, Marlon and Anna disagreed on how their son should be named. This disagreement was only the beginning of how the couple made their son a helpless battleground.

Marlon named their son Christian, after one of his homosexual lovers, Christian Marquand. On the other hand, Anna would refer to him by his second name, Devi.

Within a year, Marlon and Anna called their marriage quits, and it started a decades-long feud over their son. Marlon received temporary custody of Christian when the court discovered Anna to be physically and mentally incapable of caring for her son.

A friend of Anna’s once testified that she found her “passed out, lying in her own vomit” while her son played unattended by the edge of a swimming pool. By 1972, while Marlon was in France, Anna kidnapped her own son after he set his dormitory on fire.

Anna took him to northern Mexico, and Marlon instantly hired a private detective to find Christian. By the time he was discovered, the young man was living with a group of hippies who hid him inside a tent.

The hippies revealed Anna promised them $10,000 to keep Christian away. He was traumatized by the event and feared he would be kidnapped again.

Christian dropped out of school at 16 and spent most of his time in Washington state. JoAnn Corrales looked after him while he was there, enjoying his private life. He loved fishing, the vast forests, and crafting things with his hand. He would shuttle between Washington and LA, working as a welder and a tree trimmer.

Whenever he was in LA, Christian divided his time between his father’s mansion atop Hollywood Hills and the home his father bought him nearby, despite their difficult relationship. Carmine De Benedittis, a film producer and a friend of Marlon, noted how Christian felt small around his famous dad. She once explained:

“I noticed that when Christian is near his father, he seems to shrink, he becomes a gnat. He seems to be crushed by the force of his father’s character. It’s a very heavy load to be called ‘Christian Brando.’”

Christian Brando Was Protective of His Sibling

On May 16, 1990, Christian was at his father’s Mulholland Drive home with his pregnant sister Cheyenne and her boyfriend, Dag Drollet. Dag, then-26, was the son of a wealthy Tahitian businessman.

Cheyenne told Christian over dinner that Dag was physically abusive. This revelation didn’t sit well with the heavily intoxicated Christian, who confronted Dag with a gun, resulting in his death.

Christian told law enforcement that he and Dag got into an altercation and the gun went off accidentally. His statement turned out to be false, and the true story revealed Dag was discovered in Marlon’s den, slouching on the couch as if he were watching TV. Marlon tried reviving the man through CPR with no success.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne, who had suffered mental problems since she was a teen, later admitted that Dag didn’t harm her like she initially accused. After hearing this admission, Marlon sent Cheyenne out of the US. People assumed it was his way of protecting Christian, as Cheyenne’s testimony could have hurt Christian’s defense.

This decision led to the destruction of Cheyenne’s life. After giving birth to her son Tuki, who now works as a model, her mental health worsened. She tried taking her own life on several attempts, the final one being at her mother’s home in 1995. She was only 25 when she died and was buried next to Dag Drollet in Tahiti.

Meanwhile, after a heavily-covered hearing, Christian pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to ten years in prison but was later discharged after serving four and a half years.

He later admitted to his wife Deborah Presley that he genuinely thought the gun’s safety catch was on when the accident happened. “He was just going to scare Dag. When he went up to Dag and said ‘You’d better stop,’ it went off. He was totally shocked, devastated,” she said.

Life After Prison

After Christian left prison, his life continued on a downward spiral. Rather than rehabilitating himself, he relied further on substances to get by. Throughout those years, he rarely saw his famous father. In fact, Christian only moved back to Los Angeles after Marlon died in July 2004.

Marlon died of respiratory failure complicated by pulmonary fibrosis. Sometime after, his ashes were sent to Christian’s workplace in Kalama through a FedEx parcel, traumatizing him further.

For a couple of months following Marlon’s death, Christian lived in the Mulholland Drive property with other family members and later, with his wife of three months, Deborah, until they were kicked out of the home by Marlon’s executors who wanted to sell the property.

It’s unclear how much Christian received from his father’s estate. By the time of his death, Marlon had an estimated total net worth of $100 million, which he earned throughout years of acting.

By January 2005, a newly separated Christian moved in with Donna Geon. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment off Sunset Boulevard, but she didn’t have a stable job.

Ten months later, in October, executors gave Christian $200,000 as payment for the sale of some of his dad’s memorabilia at an auction. The payment was a bad decision – it only furthered his addictions and likely became the cause of his downfall.

During the last two weeks of Christian’s life, he was in a coma, unconscious and unaware that even when he lay dying, those closest to him were still arguing. Christian died on January 26, 2008, at the Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. He was only 49 and suffered from double pneumonia.

His girlfriend, Donna, found him on the floor of their apartment along Sunset Boulevard, gasping for air. He was brought to the hospital, but it turned out to be too late for him. He went into a coma and never woke up.

Marlon Brando’s life was like a movie. It had its glorious moments, but it also had some tragedies, the most notable of them all, the downfall of his children. No fame and fortune could take away his kids’ own demons, and fans and those closest to them are heartbroken to see how Christian and Cheyenne’s lives ended.