Cheyenne Brando
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Tarita Cheyenne Brando (February 20, 1970 – April 16, 1995) was the daughter of Marlon Brando by his third wife Tarita Teriipia, a Tahitian whom he met while filming Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962.
Born in 1970, Cheyenne was raised by her mother Tarita on the island of Tahiti, south of Papeete. She began suffering from bouts of mental illness from the age of 16, when she also started smoking, drinking to excess, and using drugs.
In 1989, Cheyenne was injured in a car accident when she crashed her boyfriend's jeep after her father refused to allow her to visit him while he was filming The Freshman in Toronto, Canada. The facial injuries she sustained brought an end to her modeling career, which led to the further deterioration of her mental state.
In 1990, Cheyenne's boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, Dag Drollet, was shot dead by Cheyenne's elder half-brother Christian Brando at their father's Mulholland Drive property in Los Angeles. This occurred after Cheyenne had alleged that Drollet was abusive, which may have been untrue. Statements Cheyenne made to the police shortly after the shooting led them to believe that the shooting was not an accident. Her mental state at the time was fragile, and she required sedation. Her father sent Cheyenne to a hospital in Tahiti, which prevented U.S. authorities from subpoenaing her to testify at the trial of her brother Christian; he later was sentenced to 10 years for the voluntary manslaughter of Dag Drollet.
After arriving in Tahiti, Cheyenne gave birth to a son she named Tuki Brando. Shortly after Cheyenne tried to take her own life by overdosing on sleeping pills, she was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia, became isolated from her former friends, and lost custody of her son to her mother (who raised him in Tahiti). In 1995, at the age of twenty-five, Cheyenne committed suicide at her mother's house by hanging herself. Neither her father nor her brother Christian was able to attend her funeral in Tahiti.
Starting around 2005, Tuki began to get attention from fashion media for modeling. He was on the February 2007 cover of L’Uomo Vogue and was named the face of the 2007 Versace Fall men’s campaign. Despite his time spent away from home, he says he still lives in Tahiti most of the year.
