- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJoan O'Callaghan
- Anna Kashfi has appeared in a number of films including The Mountain (1956) (with Spencer Tracy) and Battle Hymn (1957) (with Rock Hudson) but is best known for being Marlon Brando's first wife. Kashfi is often thought of as being Indian but several newspapers have said that she is, in fact, the daughter of a Welsh factory worker, William Callaghan, and simply reinvented herself to increase her screen appeal. In her 1979 memoir, Kashfi still held onto the claim that she is Indian by insisting that she is the product of an "unregistered alliance" between Selma Ghose and an Indian architect named Devi Kashfi, and that William Callaghan is her stepfather. She met Brando in 1955 in the Paramount commissary and after an on-off relationship (mainly due to Brando's relentless womanizing) married him in 1957. (Brando claimed that he married her only because she had become pregnant.) She gave birth in May 1958 to their son, Christian, who became notorious in 1990 for shooting dead Dag Drollet, a crime that earned him a ten-year jail sentence. Kashfi divorced Brando in 1959. She remarried a Los Angeles businessman named James Hannaford in 1974, but he died in 1987. She also outlived her first husband Marlon Brando (who died in 2004) and their son Christian (who died in 2008). She died on August 16, 2015 of natural causes at the age of 80 in Washington State, USA.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Charles Lee < charleslee@tinyworld.co.uk
- SpousesJames Edward Hannaford(January 12, 1974 - December 30, 1987) (his death)Marlon Brando(October 11, 1957 - April 22, 1959) (divorced, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsWilliam P. O'Callaghan
- In May of 1971, Anna took custody of actress Gia Scala, who was undergoing acute mental depression and was under psychiatric observation. Anna had once replaced Gia in the Glenn Ford/Jack Lemmon starrer Cowboy (1958). Gia, who had tried to take her life a number of times, stayed with Anna and her son, Christian Brando, for about two months. Gia committed suicide in April of the following year.
- After Marlon Brando's career rebounded in the 1970s, Kashfi cashed-in with kiss-and-tell-all memoir of her ex-husband: "Brando for Breakfast" (1980). In her book, she excoriated Brando for his appearance in "Ultimo tango a Parigi" (1972).
- Actor Richard Burton tells in his diaries that Anna Kashfi was actually Welsh Cardiff born instead of Indian. And when Marlon Brando found it out, he immediately asked for divorce.
- Mother of Christian Devi Brando a.k.a. Christian Brando, grandmother of Michael Brando.
- In her 1979 memoir, she recalled that she wanted to adopt a real-life Korean orphan Kwan Yung who had been cast with her in Battle Hymn (1957), but American laws didn't permit adoption of Koreans then. The whole experience was heartbreaking for both of them, since they had formed such a strong bond.
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