Jack Nicholson to demolish his friend Marlon Brando's house
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Jack Nicholson to demolish his friend Brando's house
John Harlow , Los Angeles
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2300516,00.html
IT WAS dark, cramped and run-down, but for nearly half a century it
was Marlon Brando’s home. Now his neighbour Jack Nicholson, who paid
£3.4m for the house after Brando died two years ago, is planning to
demolish it and plant frangipani flowers over the plot.
Nicholson, who returned from a holiday in London last week, resolved
to “sort out” the estate at 12900 Mulholland Drive. The famous
address, on the mountain road overlooking Los Angles, is where
Nicholson cared for his friend Brando before his death.
The 69-year-old actor has been advised that it would be too expensive
to restore the “derelict” house which has been beset by mould. Getting
the mould out would be difficult. “It’s more likely that we will take
the house down,” said Nicholson last week.
For safety reasons Nicholson will probably fill in the pool which,
shortly before his death, Brando declared he would stock with electric
eels to power his house and reduce his electric light bill.
In court records signed a year before his death, where an ailing
Brando pleaded poverty after he was entangled in a child maintenance
dispute, he described the house as a “one-bedroom bungalow with a den
converted from a garage”. He called it Frangipani, after the cream and
yellow flower beloved of Buddhists. The double Oscar winner’s assets
were estimated by his executors at £11m, largely from the sale of
Frangipani and Tetiaroa, Brando’s island near Tahiti in the south Pacific.
Yet Brando said he was also facing a mountain of debts in his later
days including £4m of legal bills and interest payments unpaid since
1990 when his son Christian was arrested after killing a Tahitian man.
The star claimed to have spent all his advances, including a
then-record £2.5m payment for 15 minutes of screentime in the 1978
Superman movie, and was so “cash poor” that he could not afford to
repaint Frangipani or even change its burnt-out light bulbs.
Last year the house, about the size of a four-bedroomed home in
Britain, was cleared by Christie’s which auctioned most of the clutter
that it found in boxes and plastic bags, from Brando’s script for The
Godfather to an exercise machine, for £1.3m.
His posthumous finances are still being untangled in a blizzard of
writs. One woman is claiming £2,000 for a diamond ring she says she
lost down the sink at Frangipani. Last month a former personal
assistant, who claimed that Brando’s will was fraudulently changed
days before he died to cut her out, initiated a £1.5m damages action
against the estate.
The executors, including Michael Medavoy, the film producer, are
raising money by licensing Brando products including a forthcoming
Superman statue — “the first time Marlon Brando has been immortalised
in plastic”. There is also one final performance to be released, a
semi-fictional documentary called Citizen Brando.
The executors have sold Tetiaroa to Richard Bailey, a developer
distrusted by Brando, who says he will turn the 13-island atoll into a
luxury “eco-resort”.
Nicholson bought Frangipani shortly after Brando died on July 1, 2004
from lung failure. He wanted to ensure his own privacy and to respect
Brando’s memory as one of Hollywood’s most influential stars. He also
wanted to maintain it for Brando’s children, but they have shown
little interest in spending time there.
Nearly everything owned by Brando has been destroyed or sold. Yet
there is one fragment of the legacy still unaccounted for: the Oscar
he received for On the Waterfront (1954).
Relatives believe he either lost it, gave it to a friend or, in a
darker mood, hid the 13in statue from debt collectors. The gold-plated
knight may yet emerge from Frangipani’s dust during the demolition.
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