Cheyenne Brando
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Tarita Cheyenne Brando (February 23, 1970 – April 16, 1995) was the daughter of the multi-Oscar-winning American actor Marlon Brando by his third wife Tarita Teriipia, a Tahitian whom he met while filming Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962.
Born in Tahiti in 1970, 11 years after her brother Christian Brando, Cheyenne was raised by her mother Tarita on the Pacific island of Tahiti, south of Papeete. She began to suffer from bouts of mental illness from the age of 16, when she also started using drugs, smoking and drinking alcohol to excess. She suffered an accident in 1989 when she crashed her boyfriend Dag Drollet's jeep after her father Marlon Brando had refused to allow her to visit him while he was filming The Freshman in Toronto, Canada. She suffered facial injuries which further worsened her mental state and ended her modelling career.
In 1990, her boyfriend by whom she was pregnant, Dag Drollet, a Tahitian, was shot dead by Cheyenne's elder half-brother Christian Brando at their father's house in Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles. This occurred after Christian and Cheyenne had returned from dinner at the Musso & Frank Grill, where Cheyenne had alleged that Dag was abusive, which was in fact untrue. Statements that Cheyenne made to the police shortly after the shooting led them to believe that the shooting was not an accident. However, her mental state at the time was fragile and she required sedation. Her father sent her to a hospital in Tahiti that prevented U.S. authorities from subpoenaing her to testify at the trial of her brother Christian, who was eventually sentenced to 10 years for voluntary manslaughter.
After arriving in Tahiti, Cheyenne gave birth to a son named Tuki Brando and tried to take her life by overdosing on sleeping pills. Shortly thereafter, she was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia, became isolated from her former friends, lost custody of her son and committed suicide in 1995 at her mother's house by hanging herself at the age of 25. Neither her father nor her brother Christian were able to attend her funeral in Tahiti. Her son Tuki fell into the custody of her mother Tarita Teriipia and was raised by her in Tahiti.
