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LOS ANGELES - Christian Brando, the troubled eldest son of screen legend Marlon Brando, was being treated for pneumonia in the intensive care unit of a Los Angeles hospital, a family friend said on Friday.
Brando, 49-year-old son of the late Hollywood icon and Welsh actress Anna Kashfi, was admitted to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centre on Jan 11, said the friend, who asked not to be identified.
"He's in the hospital, and he's not doing very well. He has pneumonia with complications," the friend said.
A hospital spokeswoman declined to comment.
Christian Brando, who lives in Los Angeles, made worldwide headlines in 1990 when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter after shooting to death his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend, Dag Drollet, and served five years in prison.
He also figured in the murder trial of actor Robert Blake, who was acquitted in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in 2001. Christian Brando had dated Bakley, and defence attorneys suggested that he could have been the killer.
Brando was called as a witness during Blake's subsequent civil trial but refused to testify and was ordered held in contempt of court.
In 2005, he pleaded guilty to spousal abuse charges involving his then-wife, Deborah, and was placed on probation.
Marlon Brando, considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, won Academy Awards for his acclaimed roles in On the Waterfront and The Godfather. He died in 2004 at the age of 80.
- REUTERS
