Marlon Brando successful film, he won his second Academy Award for playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather", a role critics consider among his greatest. "The Godfather" was then one of the most commercially successful films of all time. With that and his Oscar-nominated performance in "Last Tango in Paris", Brando re-established himself in the ranks of top box-office stars, placing sixth and tenth in the Money Making Stars poll in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Brando took a four-year hiatus before appearing in "The Missouri Breaks" (1976). After this, he was content with being a highly paid character actor in
Christian Brando the time. A few days before the incident, Drollet had flown in from Tahiti to Los Angeles to visit Cheyenne. Cheyenne was visiting her father along with her mother, and both were staying at Marlon Brando's residence. Marlon Brando had known the Drollet family for years. Christian Brando, however, had met Dag Drollet for the first time several hours before he shot him to death. On the evening of the killing, Brando and Cheyenne had dinner at Musso & Frank Grill, where Cheyenne told Brando that Drollet had been physically abusive toward her, which may have been untrue. Christian Brando