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LOS ANGELES - CHRISTIAN Brando, the troubled eldest son of Hollywood icon Marlon Brando, has died at the age of 49, media reports said.
The New York Post and People magazine both reported on their websites on Saturday that Brando, son of the late screen star and and Welsh actress Anna Kashfi, had died of complications from pneumonia.
'His body was totally compromised,' Brando's ex-wife, Deborah, told People. 'He'd lived so hard ... this is just so sad.'
People reported that he had been in a coma and on a ventilator.
Brando made worldwide headlines in 1990 when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter after shooting to death his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend, Dag Drollet, a crime for which he served five years in prison.
Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995 at the age of 25.
Brando 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. -- REUTER
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