HOLLYWOOD - Acting legend Marlon Brando, who died last Thursday at age 80 of lung failure, was cremated Monday in a closely guarded private funeral in Los Angeles, attended only by family, Reuters reports.Brando's attorney David Seeley told Reuters he was not privy to details of the ceremony and knew of no plans for a public memorial service. "All I can tell you is ... anything that's going to occur in the future is a private family matter," Seeley said. "They're keeping it under a closed, need-to-know basis."
Reuters reports the actor's older sister, former actress Jocelyn Brando, was quoted by Foxnews.com columnist Roger Friedman as saying, "There will be no service of any kind," who added, "If someone wants to do something, that's their business. But Marlon would have hated it. He would not have liked it, and we don't want to do anything he didn't want to do. He's off on his trip, whatever that is."
Seeley also dismissed widely circulated media reports that two-time Oscar winner had left behind precise, taped instructions for how he wanted to be memorialized. According to accounts in the British press, Brando had requested that a final service be led by his friend and neighbor, Jack Nicholson, that certain people not be invited and that his ashes be scattered over the Tahitian atoll he bought in 1966, Reuters reports.
"None of that is true as far as I'm aware," Seeley said. "He left a will that's going to be probated, and that's the document that's going to control how everything gets distributed."
Seeley also told Reuters that Brando was not married at the time of his death, and that he had nine children, including those he adopted and his deceased daughter, Cheyenne, who committed suicide in 1995.