US: Marlon Brando, the reclusive actor known by his peers as the greatest screen performer of his generation, has died in Los Angeles, aged 80, family members said yesterday writes Conor O'Clery in New York.
Brando, who represented the "method" school of acting in classic movies like A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, is perhaps best known today for his performance as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
In keeping with the intense privacy he cultivated in later years, the cause of death was not disclosed, nor even the name of the hospital in Los Angeles where he passed away.
His lawyer, Mr David Seeley, explained that Brando was a very private man. The Oscar-winning actor was rushed to hospital on Wednesday evening and died at 6.20 p.m. on Thursday. The death was confirmed by his sister, Jocelyn, after a bulletin was posted on Thursday on the website of KPHO-TV in Phoenix.
The New York Post alone carried an inside story yesterday morning under the headline "Brando is dead: TV report."
It said police had not confirmed the death but claimed that relatives were gathering at the actor's Los Angeles home. Other news organisations did not carry the report until midday yesterday.
"His family is gathering from all over the world and will be making arrangements following his last will and testament," said Mr Seeley yesterday, adding that the funeral would be private.
Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1924 to the descendants of Irish immigrants, Dorothy Pennebaker and Marlon Brando snr. His great-grandfather was a Dublin doctor, Robert Gahan, who emigrated to the Midwest after the Famine.
Brando was named one of the Top 100 Irish Americans by Irish America magazine in 1995.
Alcoholism afflicted many family members, including Marlon's mother, Gahan's granddaughter, who was an accomplished actress in her own right. Brando once remarked: "I come from a long line of Irish drunks."
His longtime friend and Godfather co-star, James Caan, said he was shocked by the news. Brando, he said, "influenced more young actors of my generation than any actor."
Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Brando in Apocalypse Now, said: "Marlon would hate the idea of people chiming in to make comments about his death. All I'll say is that it makes me sad that he is gone."
Brando had a lifelong commitment to the political rights of native Americans and in 1973 refused to accept his second Oscar in protest at their treatment.
His later life was overshadowed by family turmoil. Christian Brando, his son by his first wife, Anna Kashfi, was convicted of the murder in 1990 of his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend. Cheyenne later committed suicide, aged 25.
Brando was reported to owe millions, despite receiving huge sums for walk-on parts in recent films.
He was embroiled in legal disputes up to his death. He spent a fortune on Tetiaroa, a South Seas atoll where he relived the days shooting one of his earlier movies, Mutiny on the Bounty.