Marlon Brando's French Polynesian island to become luxury resort

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- It was near where he filmed "Mutiny on the Bounty," and fell in love with his Tahitian co-star. Years later, it was Marlon Brando's retreat, where he would lie on the beach and marvel at the night sky.

As he pondered his own twilight, Brando envisioned sharing his private atoll in French Polynesia. Celebrities could go there to escape the paparazzi. Each villa could have a Polynesian couple to cook for guests, take them spearfishing, teach the Tahitian names of the plants and birds and play the guitar at night. Less than a year after his death last July from lung failure at age 80, Brando's vision could be nearer reality.

An environmentally-sensitive 30-bungalow resort, to be called, "The Brando," is scheduled to open in 2008 on Tetiaroa, the island the actor bought in 1965. The only current inhabitant is Brando's son, Teihotu, one of his children with ex-wife Tarita Teriipia.

"Marlon always felt that the Polynesians, more than anyone else in the world, had found an unhurried and humorous way to go through life. He always hoped his life could be so uncomplicated, but unfortunately that was not the case," said developer Richard Bailey, CEO of Tahiti Beachcomber SA, who worked with Brando in the years before his death.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/04/19/people.brando.reut/index.html