2004-07-01

MARLON BRANDO, American actor died (b. 1924); Early in his career he became the roommate of his boyhood friend, Wally Cox, who he encouraged to study acting with Stella Adler. Cox and Brando remained very close for the rest of Cox’s life, and the famously reclusive Brando appeared unannounced at Cox’s wake when he died. Brando is also known to have kept Cox’s ashes in his bedroom and conversed with them nightly. Brando died of respiratory failure from pulmonary fibrosis with congestive heart failure at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Brando left behind thirteen children (two of his children, Cheyenne and Dylan Brando, had predeceased him) as well as over thirty grandchildren. The cause of death was intentionally withheld, and his lawyer cited privacy concerns. He also suffered from failing eyesight caused by diabetes and liver cancer.

Shortly before his death and despite needing an oxygen mask to breathe, he recorded his voice to appear in The Godfather: The Game, once again as Don Vito Corleone.