Marlon Brando, who until recently was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor of all time (based on his $30 million + earnings for less than 20 minutes of screen time in SUPERMAN), is now 80, broke, lives on his pensions, owes $20 million to various creditors, is delinquent in his child support payments and unable to pay for private therapy for his 10 year old autistic son. He lives alone in a one BR bungalow, and has hidden his Oscars to protect them from creditors (though I once read he’d given them away because they meant nothing to him). Cite and Re-cite
How does this happen to stars who make that kind of money? (Meanwhile, Tony Randall was never anywhere near the star or the earner of Brando and yet was able to start his acting company with $1 million of his own money, while Mary Wickes and Natalie Schafer each left millions to their charities.) And does it make you pity them or think “what a maroon” when they end up this way?
I know he’s supposed to be a complete megalomaniacal jerk of a human being, but I honestly hope these reports turn out to be false as he’s given me one helluva lot of pleasure over the years via his movies. (And if you’re broke and owe $20 million, why not declare bankruptcy? And what happened to those islands he owned?)
Reminds me of a few weeks ago, when my buddy and I were drinking with his neighbor, and the neighbor starts talking about how tight money is, after mentioning that he and his wife’s combined income is $180k a year.
I’m working part time for dirt, and my buddy is installing locks. We looked at him like we was fucking nuts. Does he have a Faberge Egg habit like Bleeding Gums Murphy?
It’s VERY tough for me to have sympathy for these folks. I saved my comparatively meager money to get me through tough times like now. Brando couldn’t put a million or two into a fucking Certificate Of Deposit? For the sake of his goddamn CHILD, if not himself!
This reminds me of the story about Beethoven carrying on to some friend about how he couldn’t pay the rent. The friend handed him a piece of paper and said, “write down a tune.” LVB whizzed off something, the friend disappeared, then re-appeared a short time later with the rent money, which had taken him almost no effort to get for the handwritten Beethoven tune.
Even if Brando is on death’s door and unable to get out of a wheelchair, it would take almost no effort for him to land a multi-million dollar cameo in some movie – especially since there is the possibility that it would be his last movie appearance ever.
There’s probably at least some truth to it. I read an article about him sometime in the last year or so, I believe in Vanity Fair. He was running out of money and came up with the idea of holding actor’s classes and videotaping them in order to sell the cassettes to would-be actors. He enlisted Sean Penn and several other well-known actors to participate as students (their names escape me at the moment). I felt at the time he must be getting really desperate for money to do that, and I can’t imagine there are enough would-be actors who would be willing to buy the tapes to provide him with much of an income.
However, he still had his house in Beverly Hills or Bel Air, and a servant or two. If he’s living in a 1 BR, he must have run out of money completely and sold his house. Pretty sad.
1- also tells of another odd lawsuit against the old man
2 (Sunday Times- requires registration and search of keywords Marlon Brando)
Evidently, Brando sold his house to buy a $1 million home for his former lover and their three elementary-school age children. He has earned $3 million since 1998 but spent $4 million on lawyer’s fees and lawsuit settlements (including the one with his ex-love) and another $1.5 million on his Melanesian island. He attempted to sell the island to Michael Jackson but the deal fell through due to Michael’s major cash problems. The bungalow is described as a “claustrophobic 1 BR” and approximately 2000 sq. feet; I can see how it’s one or the other, but since I live in a 2 BR apartment that’s much smaller than that it actually sounds rather large to me.
Still, a major comedown for a man who once had homes everywhere, private planes and a fleet of cars. OTOH, he has by most conservative count at least a dozen children and by some counts more than twice that number, so if worse comes to worse he could stay with each for a month at a time and not have to pester the same one more than twice in a year.
Brando’s plight doesn’t move me…how could he run up a 4 million legal bill? Even at 500/hour, that is 8000 HOURS of legal work! Do ya suppose that Brando’s accountant was in on the deal?
I remember reading that when they filmed “MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY” (he played Fletcher Christian), he forced the film company to BUY him a private island.
Stupid SOB…I’m glad he’sfinally had to taste some humility for a change.
Whenever I fantasize about striking it rich, my first thoughts aren’t “I’m gonna buy…” but “I’m gonna invest $x in a low-risk account at y% so I’ll have $z in guaranteed income and can live comfortably without needing to do a lick of work for the rest of my life. With the rest, I’m gonna buy…”
Guess ol’ Marlon’s fantasies are different from mine. Tough luck for him.
I can see it - if you’re bad at money, you can mismanage a fortune just as well as mismanaging nothing. In other words, he might have a faberge egg habit, or rather a yacht habit.
Most of the legal bills weren’t his but for his son Christian, though he’s certainly been sued many times as well. He also provided private care for his daughter Cheyenne (until she killed herself) and for Cheyenne’s child, and I believe lost a civil judgment (or settled out of court with) the family of Cheyenne’s lover Dag (the man Christian was imprisoned for killing). All of that wiped out his pre- 1990 fortune.
Still- you’ve made tens of millions of dollars. You have some of the world’s best investment counsellors and business managers with decades of experience and impeccable credentials begging for your business… how could you not…
Oh well.
One thing you must say for OJ: he was a much better than excellent money manager. He has an income of more than $25,000 per month that is completely untouchable by any creditors and turned his football earnings (long before the era of the 9 figure deal) into a conglamerate. If only he didn’t have that nasty habit of hacking people up he’d be almost admirable.
I just had a really crazy idea. We’ve heard that Michael Jackson is broke, as well. Maybe he spent his money buying Brando’s island, and he’s going to run there if it looks like he’s going to be convicted of child molestation.