04/13/2010

Branding Marlon’s legacy; Lawsuits settled, estate is busy capitalizing on his name

By TED JOHNSON

Marlon Brando’s legacy, like his life, has been fraught with complications and contradictions. In the six years since his passing, dozens of lawsuits were filed against his estate—including ones from a personal assistant, a business manager and even a former daughter-in-law.

But his executors and the estate’s legal team have declared peace, as all of the suits have been dismissed or settled—which is no small thing as they go about the business of Brando.

What that means is capitalizing on his legendary status, in what has been a growing and sometimes lucrative aspect of post-life stardom: the merchandising of deceased celebrities name and likeness.
For the estate’s corporation, Brando Enterprises, that has meant a deal with Indian Motorcyles, which has recreated a line of leather jackets Brando wore in “The Wild One”; a deal with Dolce & Gabbana for a line of jackets, T-shirts and tank tops; and, most prominently, a high-end resort on the actor’s private atoll in the South Pacific, Tetiaroa. The name will be, simply, The Brando.

The first thing that springs to mind is, Is this what Marlon would have wanted?

To say that is a loaded question is an understatement.

During his life he seldom struck endorsement deals, but one of his last projects was doing the voiceover for Paramount’s “The Godfather” video game. Brando wasn’t Elvis, but, according to his estate’s lawyers, he also had a business sense.

“He put no restrictions on how the trustees could use his name in the future,” said David Seeley, one of the attorneys representing the estate. “I think that says a lot.”

Much of the battle over Brando’s estate—worth a reported $22 million—stems from an action he took two weeks before he died. That’s when he signed a codicil appointing three new executors to his estate: producer Mike Medavoy, accountant Larry Dressler and Avra Douglas, a family friend. The action knocked out the two previous executors, Alice Marchak, his former personal assistant and named in his will as a beneficiary, and business manager JoAn Corrales. Both sued the estate for an array of reasons and eventually settled.

That certainly wasn’t all. One of the protracted suits was brought by Deborah Brando, who was once married to Christian Brando, and claimed she was assigned his rights as another beneficiary after the death of the actor’s oldest son in 2008. (The estate has eight beneficiaries).

One of her more explosive allegations was that the codicil was forged.

But her efforts to reopen probate were denied, with the California Court of Appeal ruling last summer that she lacked standing. As she continued her legal fight, the estate settled with her, too, for what its attorneys call a “nuisance settlement,” i.e. a small amount of money. This only scratches the surface of the legal tangle, one that Seeley said made it difficult going forward “in the fact that we had to prove to various people that the trustees were legitimate and had the power to do what they needed to do.”

A particular point of contention was the idea for The Brando.

In 2004 the estate struck a deal with Dick Bailey, a luxury hotel developer, to create an eco-resort on the island, which the actor had purchased in 1966. Scheduled to open on June 6, 2012, the development will feature 47 villas, each with its own plunge pool, plus such things as a spa and a fitness center.
With a Hitchcockian logo that blends Brando’s profile with a gentle shoreline, the resort also will deploy some of Brando’s ideas. When Brando was alive, Bailey had discussed plans with him, including a “sea water air conditioning system,” in which a deep-sea pipe pumps cold water from the ocean depths to chill the air in the hotel. Critics like Marchak have questioned whether the estate’s reps, even the family member beneficiaries, really knew what Brando wanted. They doubted that meant a luxury resort on the island, much less branded in his name.

But the estate’s representatives note that Brando himself built a resort there during his lifetime, albeit one in a state of decay by the time he died, and that they are continuing his legacy of making the destination a center for research and education. Medavoy said that ” in general we have to do what is best for the surviving members of his family and the ones he asked us to take care of, as long as it is not demeaning to Marlon the actor.”

Working with Brand Sense Partners, they have rejected some ideas, like a line of ashtrays. And much of their time is spent in what another attorney, Jeffrey Abrams, called “protecting the brand from being misused.”

About a year before Brando’s passing, Medavoy said that he had a conversation with the actor in which Brando brought up the topic of his will, but Medavoy said thought he was “kidding around” and pushed the conversation to something else.

“In the final analysis, it was all his decision,” said Medavoy. “I have a feeling if I had called him and said, ‘Hey, I would like to be your executor,’ he probably would have told me I was nuts. And I have a feeling, looking down, he is probably laughing.”