The personal effects of Hollywood legend Marlon Brando -- everything from script notes to a fake bloody finger -- will be sold next week in New York in an auction that will provide some clues to the life of the intensely private actor.
The more than 300 lots in Thursday’s auction at Christie’s are being sold by Brando’s estate.
Many of the lots feature scripts, pictures, clothing and other materials from Brando’s movies. There are 36 pages of meticulously written notes on “Mutiny On The Bounty,” where Brando explores themes and plots and sub-text in the film. Also for sale is a note from “The Godfather” author Mario Puzo appealing to Brando to take the starring role.
Other lots include correspondence between Brando and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola, writer Jack Kerouac, Barbra Streisand and other entertainment world figures.
Four Japanese lacquer boxes filled with jokes and magic tricks, including a fake severed finger, balance Brando’s reputation for dramatic intensity with his prankster side.
Also up for bid are furniture, musical instruments, books, artwork and caricatures that Brando drew. The more mundane items include Brando’s expired driver’s licenses, old credit cards, awards he won at summer camp in his youth and a medical alert tag noting his allergy to penicillin.
On stage and screen, Brando was known for iconic portrayals of brute male ego in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and of brooding menace as a Mafia kingpin in “The Godfather.”
Brando died last July at the age of 80.