LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Christian Brando, the tormented son of late Hollywood acting legend Marlon Brando, has died in Los Angeles from pneumonia, his family and lawyers told US media Saturday. He was 49.
Brando, who made international headlines in 1990 for shooting dead his sister Cheyennes boyfriend, Dag Drollet, passed away early Saturday at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.
A family lawyer revealed the death to the Los Angeles Times and it was later confirmed by his ex-wife Deborah in an interview with People magazine.
Brando, the eldest of Marlon Brandos nine children, was released from prison in 1996 after serving around five years behind bars for the slaying of Drollet on May 16, 1990.
The murder took place at his actor fathers sprawling hilltop estate in Los Angeles when Brando confronted Drollet after Cheyenne confided he had subjected her to regular beatings.
"I did not go into that room to kill Dag Drollet," Brando told the Los Angeles Times in a 1991 interview. "I just wanted to scare him."
Brando claimed that as he turned to leave following the confrontation, Drollet tried to grab his arm and the gun went off.
The slaying marked the beginning of an agonising family tragedy for the Brando clan. Marlon Brando died aged 80 in 2004.
While Christian Brando was in prison in 1995 his sister Cheyenne -- who had been pregnant with Drollets child at the time of the shooting -- killed herself in Tahiti amid doubts over the truth of the abuse allegations.
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