Cheyenne Brando

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tarita Cheyenne Brando (born February 20, 1970 in Tahiti , French Polynesia , † April 16, 1995 in Punaauia , Tahiti) was a Tahitian model . She was the daughter of American actor Marlon Brando and his long-time partner Tarita Teriipaia . Brando, who suffered the burden of her name for most of her adult life, hit the international headlines in 1990 in connection with the death of her partner and child father Dag Drollet.

Life

Childhood and youth

Tarita Cheyenne Brando was born in 1970 in Tahiti, the center of her mother's life, Tarita Teriipaia. Unlike her brother Teihotu, who was seven years her senior, she was conceived through artificial insemination . Her parents met while filming the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty . The girl got her first name Cheyenne based on the Indian people of the same name , for whom Marlon Brando campaigned.

According to Brando biographer Peter Manso, Cheyenne grew up feeling confident about her famous father and felt like "the most beautiful, intelligent and richest girl in Polynesia". Although Marlon Brando visited his two children in Tahiti only occasionally on weekends, Cheyenne adored him. The actor, who always tried to shield his offspring from show business, justified this long-distance relationship in an interview in 1976 with the fact that Cheyenne and Teihotu, as Tahitians, were "too good-hearted" for the hard life in the USA.

Cheyenne has been described as a cheerful teenager who loved to dance. Shortly before her 16th birthday, she visited her father for the first time in Los Angeles and was impressed by the city. While she always had a positive relationship with her mother, attitudes towards her father later changed drastically. In a 1990 interview, she announced that she despised him for ignoring her as a child. He only came to the island once a year and he didn't care whether he saw her and her brother or not. Manso later described this father-daughter relationship as "bizarre".

Dag Drollet

In 1987 - according to other sources a little later - Cheyenne met Dag Drollet, the son of a well-known Tahitian politician, who was six years her senior and entered into a relationship with him. In 1989 she wanted to visit her father on the Freshman film set in Toronto , but the latter refused. Furious, she drove her half-brother's jeep into a ditch and suffered a broken jaw and injuries to one ear and under the eye. Marlon Brando immediately flown his daughter to LA, where her face was restored in a surgical procedure that took several hours . Her modeling career - according to the Los Angeles Times , she had a one-time engagement - came to an abrupt end. As a result, the young woman struggled with depression , which increased her drug addiction .

Because of these problems, Dag Drollet turned away from her. He agreed, however, to accompany her to California for psychiatric treatment in May 1990 and the two moved into Marlon Brando's house on Mulholland Drive . On the night of May 16, Cheyenne's half-brother, Christian Brando , shot Drollet in the TV room of the house. According to him, there was an argument because Drollet is said to have hit his sister. The prosecutor pleaded lack of signs of a fight for murder , using the prominent father, however, could a deal be negotiated and Christian Brando was convicted of manslaughter to imprisonment convicted of ten years.

Because Cheyenne, who was eight months pregnant, was also in the house at the time of the crime, the court tried to summon her as a witness. A month later, before she could take the stand , she traveled back to Tahiti and gave birth to a son before going back to the mental hospital. During the trial, Cheyenne attempted twice suicide by overdosing on sedatives and antidepressants and hanging . In December 1990 a judge classified her as "mentally disabled", which meant that she could no longer be obliged to testify in the criminal proceedings. On suspicion of complicity , she was finally arrested near Orléans at the end of 1991 and flown to Tahiti, but the charges were ultimately dropped.

Death and afterlife

Cheyenne Brando spent the last years of her life alternately with her brother Teihotu and in her mother's house in Punaauia as well as in various psychiatric institutions and rehab clinics. Because many friends had distanced themselves from her, her depression intensified and she could not get a grip on her drug problem, which she had not even been able to get rid of during pregnancy. Shortly after she was denied custody of her son, 25-year-old Cheyenne Brando hanged herself on Easter Sunday in 1995 in her mother's house. She was buried two days later at Papeete's side by Dag Drollet's. Marlon Brando, who was making a comeback at the time with the film Don Juan DeMarco , was unable to attend the funeral for health reasons.

In a 1993 interview, Cheyenne accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child . Her mother confirmed these claims in her 2005 autobiography Marlon Brando, mon amour, ma déchirure (German: Marlon Brando, my love, my suffering ), while the actor himself had denied the abuse throughout his life. Brando's and Drollet's son Tuki Brando, who grew up with his grandmother, is now an active fashion model .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Tom Gliatto: Paradise Lost. People , May 1, 1995, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  2. ^ Last Tango on Brando Island. Maxim , December 11, 2008, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Phil Reeves: Brando's daughter kills herself. The Independent , April 18, 1995, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Darwin Porter: Brando Unzipped. Blood Moon Productions, Ltd., New York 2006, ISBN 0-9748118-2-3 , pp. 604 f. (English).
  5. ↑ Manso, Peter 1940-. Retrieved September 11, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Brando: The Biography by Peter Manso. Retrieved September 11, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c Eric Malnic: Daughter of Brando Kills Herself in Tahiti. Los Angeles Times , April 8, 1995, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  8. ↑ 1993 Paris Match interview with Cheyenne Brando - full transcript. The Data Lounge, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Brando's ex-wife says star sexually abused daughter. IOL, March 9, 2005, accessed September 12, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Olivia Lidbury: Tuki Brando: from tragedy to top model. The Telegraph , April 21, 2011, accessed September 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Brando, Cheyenne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brando, Tarita Cheyenne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Tahitian model and daughter of Marlon Brando
DATE OF BIRTH 20th February 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Tahiti , French Polynesia
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1995
Place of death Punaauia , Tahiti, French Polynesia