Cinema: The Private World of Marlon Brando

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He is particularly happy with his relationship with Eldest Son Christian (mother: Anna Kashfi), who is 18 and about to enter college in Los Angeles. "I not only love him, I like him. We spend a lot of time together." Another son is in a private school in Idaho. The other day his father made a quick hop from Tahiti to "sit on him a little and shape him up."

Brando keeps his private life on Tahiti very secluded. He has two children by Tarita, who was a 19-year-old beauty in Mutiny on the Bounty. They live on Tahiti. "I see them on weekends," says their father. "They fly to Tetiaroa or I go to them. I don't think I will let them go to the States. As Tahitians, they are too trusting. They would be destroyed in the pace of life in the States."

Brando and Tarita are still good friends. Says Marlon, "I remember being furious with her because she fed so much candy and gum—so bad for the teeth—to the baby. She said to me, 'What can I do? He wants it.' Tahitians treat children as people who have legitimate wants and needs. None of this I-know-better-because-I'm-your-parent syndrome. I respect it. But I've learned not to try to go native mentally ... not to try to assume their mind frame. My first seven years as a child growing up in Illinois always gets in the way, and I meet myself coming around the other side of the island."

We returned from the bird sanctuary with the last rays of sunlight. The lagoon was a gentle green color set against the dramatic black silhouette of Tetiaroa. Brando pointed up to the first evening star visible in the dimming sky. A strange, almost mystical feeling pervaded, as if one could slip overboard and sink beneath the soft sea to become part of all that beauty. "Don't worry, you'd swim," Marlon laughed when I told him later about my strange impulse. "But I know exactly what you mean. It's happened to me many times."