Bond with Brando

Before Marlon Godfather Brando died on July 1, 2004, he couldn’t have possibly imagined that his
former wife would engage in a bitter custody battle over his ashes.
Six years after his death, Brando’s Indian wife, actor Anna Kashfi, has alleged that their dead son’s ex-girlfriend is holding hostage a portion of the icon’s remains. What makes the story even more engaging in the context of India is that Kashfi supposedly has roots in Kolkata since she was raised in this city and could have Bengali blood running in her veins.Though there are some confusions regarding her parentage, reports suggest that she was born in Darjeeling and had taken extensive training in Indian classical dance before she made her acting debut.
Kashfi was born in September 30, 1934, and made her acting debut in 1955 with The Mountain that starred Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner. While in Kolkata, her exotic looks drew the attention of an Indian film company. She is supposed to have even signed two films though they never got released in Europe or America. However, her role of a dancer caught the attention of Brando. The duo first met at the Paramount Studios. A brief romance led to Kashfi getting pregnant. The two got married in October 1957.
Shortly after marriage, a Cardiff steel worker, William O’Callaghan, revealed that Kashfi was his estranged daughter, Joan. He claimed that though she was born in Kolkata, where O’Callaghan had worked as a superintendent in the Indian State Railways, the family had returned to the UK when Joan was 13. Apparently, she had worked as a waitress in Cardiff before taking to modelling in London, changing her name to Anna Kashfi and then, making her debut. This revelation angered Brando. He ended the marriage, barely four months after the birth of their son, Christian. Subsequently, Kashfi fought a long custody battle for Christian, where she accused Brando of being a womaniser and a wife-beater! Brando, in turn, mentioned Kashfi’s increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol. In 1972, Kashfi kidnapped Christian from school, ran off to Mexico and got arrested. This led to Brando getting solo access to Christian.
The twist in the tale came in 1979 when Kashfi published a book titled Brando for Breakfast, where she claimed that she is half-Indian and that the press had incorrectly believed that O’Callaghan was her real father. According to Kashfi, he was her stepfather. Kashfi wrote that her biological father was Indian and that she was the result of an “unregistered alliance” between her parents. Kashfi hadn’t referred to O’Callaghans as her parents on her marriage license. Instead, she had stated that her father was Devi Kashfi and her mother was Selma Ghose. The turbulence in the Kashfi-Brando marriage never went down well with Christian. In 1991, Christian was convicted of manslaughter of his half sister’s boyfriend. During his prison term, Christian had defiantly refused to meet his mother. He died in 2008. It’s Christian’s girlfriend, Donna Lopez Geon, who is now being accused by Kashfi. Donna, on her part, has said that she took the ashes and spread them in Franklin Canyon (a place in Beverly Hills that Brando loved).
One wouldn’t know why Kashfi is fighting the ash-battle now. Especially, since in an interview post-Brando’s death, she had said: “The world may be mourning the loss of a brilliant actor, but personally he was a monster. The only good thing that’s come out of his passing is that Christian and I can meet again openly as mother and son....”
The actor, who had done films like Battle Hymn, Cowboy and Night of the Quarter Moon besides her television appearances, also has inspired a group to form an eponymous musical band. In an interview, vocalist Sian Webley of the Anna Kashfi band, has said, “When I read her story, I discovered an extraordinary tale that has all the components of a Greek tragedy — love, illusion, betrayal, heartbreak, despair — that’s sadly wrapped up in the all too human condition of misunderstanding, thwarted ambition and the desire to see a girl, who fancied her chances, fall.”
One neither knows if Kashfi speaks Bengali nor is there any document stating whether she still has any relatives in this city. But her story of love and life still make for an engaging read for people of her hometown and much beyond.
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