Anna Kashfi (born Johanna O'Callaghan on September 30, 1934) is a former film actress, who had a brief Hollywood career in the 1950s and is best known for having been married to Marlon Brando.
According to Mr. and Mrs. William Patrick O'Callaghan of Cardiff, Wales, who were interviewed by The New York Times in October 1957, Kashfi was their estranged daughter, born Johanna O'Callaghan in Darjeeling, raised in Calcutta and Wales where the family moved in 1947. O'Callaghan was a London-born steel worker of Irish descent, who had been a traffic superintendent on the Indian State railways; his wife was English and told the press "there is no Indian blood in my family or my husband's family." In her book, Brando for Breakfast, published in 1979, however, Kashfi claimed that she really is half-Indian and that the press incorrectly believed that William O'Callaghan was her real father when he was, she stated, her stepfather. Kashfi wrote that her biological father was Indian and that she was the result of an "unregistered alliance" between her parents (i.e. her parents never married.) The film director Edward Dmytryk, who directed the actress in her first film, stated that he knew her real surname was Irish but he said he assumed that she was half Indian.
She worked as a waitress in Cardiff and in a butcher shop before moving to London, where she became a model
The actress made her debut screen appearance using the stage name Anna Kashfi as a Hindu girl in The Mountain (1956) for Paramount with Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner. In her next film she co-starred with Rock Hudson as a Korean girl in Battle Hymn (1957). This was followed by Cowboy (1958) with Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon in which she played a Mexican. Her next and last film during this period was Night of the Quarter Moon (1959). She also made a few appearances on television, including the series Adventures in Paradise, though drug and alcohol problems reportedly contributed to the premature end of her acting career.
Kashfi married Marlon Brando on 11 October 1957, and they were divorced on 22 April 1959. According to The New York Times (14 October 1957), though Kashfi's parents had been identified as the William O'Callaghans, she did not identify them as her parents on her marriage license, instead stating that her father was Devi Kashfi and her mother was Selma Ghose; a friend of the bride stated that Kashfi's purported Indian father had died six weeks before the Brandos' wedding. However, the O'Callaghans were adamant that Kashfi was their child, and William O'Callaghan was quoted in Time magazine as saying, "That's our daughter, and both me and missus were born in London." The magazine further stated that "MGM, which likes Johanna-Anna in her off-shoulder sari, first hedged, then admitted her identity."
The Brandos had a son, Christian Devi Brando, (1958-2008), and fought bitterly over custody of the boy, with Brando eventually obtaining custody.
Kashfi married James Hannaford,a salesman,in 1974; he later died. In the 1990s, her son, Christian, whom she called "Devi," was tried for killing his half-sister Cheyenne Brando's boyfriend. Christian Brando died of pneumonia in Los Angeles in January, 2008 at the age of 49.
Filmography
The Mountain (1956)
Battle Hymn (1957)
Cowboy (1958)
Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
Television appearances
Adventures In Paradise (1959)
The Deputy (1960)
Bronco (1960)
References
^ "Kashfi Called Welsh," The New York Times, 13 October 1957
^ "Kashfi Called Welsh," The New York Times, 13 October 1957
^ "Kashfi Called Welsh," The New York Times, 13 October 1957
^ Anna Kashfi (band) Interview by John Clarkson, September 24, 2004, Brando Unzipped, Darwin Porter, 2006
^ "Kashfi Still Enigma: License Does Not List Welsh Couple As Parents," The New York Times, 14 October 1957
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kashfi"
Categories: 1934 births | Anglo-Indians | Living people | Film actors
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