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{{Short description|British-Indian actress}}{{EngvarB|date=June 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Anna Kashfi
| image = Anna Kashfi in Night of the Quarter Moon.jpg
| imagesize = 200px
| caption = Kashfi in ''[[Night of the Quarter Moon]]'' (1959)
| birth_name = Joan O'Callaghan<ref name="Parade"/>
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1934|9|30}}
| birth_place = [[Chakradharpur]], [[British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2015|8|16|1934|9|30}}
| death_place = [[Woodland, Washington]], U.S.
| resting_place = Kalama IOOF Cemetery, [[Kalama, Washington]], U.S.
| occupation = Actress
| years_active = 1956–1963
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Marlon Brando]]|1957|1959|end=div}}<br>{{marriage|James Hannaford|1974|1986|end=died}}
| children = [[Christian Brando|Christian Devi Brando]]
}}

'''Anna Kashfi''' (born '''Joan O'Callaghan''', 30 September 1934 – 16 August 2015) was a British Indian film actress who had a brief Hollywood career in the 1950s.

==Early life==
Kashfi was born in [[Chakradharpur|Chakradharpur, India]], to William Patrick O'Callaghan, a traffic superintendent on the Indian State railways, who was a [[London]]er of [[Irish descent]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-anna-kashfi-20150825-story.html|title=Anna Kashfi dies at 80; wife in brief, stormy marriage to Marlon Brando|first=Los Angeles|last=Times}}</ref> and his [[Welsh people|Welsh]] wife, Phoebe.<ref name="Parade"/> She was raised in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] until she was 13, when the family relocated to [[Cardiff]], Wales.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite news|author=Staff|title=Kashfi Called Welsh |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/10/13/96959847.pdf|newspaper=New York|location=The New York Times|date=13 October 1957|access-date=2 April 2015}}</ref>

==Ethnic heritage==
By the age of 22 Joan O'Callaghan had transformed herself into the exotic ethnic Indian model and actress Anna Kashfi, using a name invented by her and Glyn Mortimer, the head of a London modelling agency. As Mortimer told ''Parade'' magazine for its 1959 investigation into Kashfi's past, "Kashfi was the name of a dear friend of mine. Joan picked the name Anna from Joanna [sic], which she apparently had used from time to time".<ref name="Parade"/>

The matter of Kashfi's ethnic heritage has remained in question. Both her British-born parents maintained she was their biological daughter, born, her father told ''Parade'' magazine in 1959, "to my wife in 1934 when I was employed by the Bengal-Nagupur railway as a station master". ''Parade'' stated that its investigation determined that "her baptismal certificate bears this out" and furthermore stated that she had a brother, Bosco Brian Patrick O'Callaghan, who was then attending a technical college in Cardiff.<ref name="Parade"/>

However, upon her 1957 marriage to [[Marlon Brando]] a year after adopting her stage name, Kashfi failed to list either on her marriage license, instead stating her real father was one Devi Kashfi and biological mother named Selma Ghose. In a 14 October 1957, wedding day interview with ''The New York Times'' (entitled "Kashfi Still Enigma: License Does Not List Welsh Couple As Parents"), a friend of the bride was quoted as stating that Kashfi's purported Indian father had died six weeks before the ceremony.<ref>{{cite news |author= |title=Kashfi Still Enigma: License Does Not List Welsh Couple As Parents |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/10/14/84774203.pdf |newspaper=New York |location=The New York Times |date=14 October 1957 |access-date=2 April 2015 }}</ref>

Nevertheless, the O'Callaghans were adamant that Kashfi was their child, and William O'Callaghan was quoted in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine as saying, "That's our daughter, and both me and missus were born in London."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937947-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090113115750/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937947-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 January 2009|title=People, Oct. 21, 1957|date=21 October 1957|newspaper=Time }}</ref>  ''Parade'' reported that Kashfi might have selected the surname "Ghose" for her putative mother from the owners of The Maharajah, a London shop where she worked as a model. She also worked as a model in the London fur salon of Henry Noble in Regent Street.<ref name="Parade">{{cite news|last1=Johansen|first1=Arno|title=The strange case of Anna Kashfi|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19590712&id=8BtSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_nYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5859,1262359&hl=en|accessdate=26 August 2015|work=St. Petersburg Times|date=12 July 1959|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/19590712000000/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19590712&id=8BtSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_nYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5859,1262359&hl=en|archivedate=12 July 1959}} [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/31774382/ Alt URL]</ref>

In her 1979 book, ''Brando for Breakfast'', Kashfi retreated halfway and claimed she is half-Indian, maintaining that rather than William O'Callaghan being her real father he was in effect her stepfather. She stated her biological father was Indian and she was the result of an "unregistered alliance" between him and her mother. When questioned earlier in life about her daughter's heritage, her mother had told the press ''"There is no Indian blood in my family or my husband's family"'',<ref name="ReferenceA" /> which indeed rules out her ancestry and O'Callaghan's, but does admit the logical possibility of Anna's father having been Indian. Film director [[Edward Dmytryk]], who directed the actress in her first film, stated in a ''New York Times'' interview (titled "Kashfi Called Welsh") the day before her wedding to Brando that he knew her real surname was Irish but assumed that she was half-Indian.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

==Career==
Upon her family's relocation to Wales, O'Callaghan worked as a waitress and in a butcher's shop in [[Cardiff]] before moving to London, where she became a model.<ref>{{cite news|title=Anna Kashfi, actress – obituary|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11819065/Anna-Kashfi-actress-obituary.html|accessdate=26 August 2015|work=The Telegraph|date=23 August 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Clarkson|first1=John|title=Anna Kashfi interview|url=http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Article.aspx?id=3441|accessdate=26 August 2015|publisher=Penny Black Music|date=24 September 2004}}</ref> She made her screen debut as an actress in 1956 in ''[[The Mountain (1956 film)|The Mountain]]'' (1956) for [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] with [[Spencer Tracy]] and [[Robert Wagner]]. Using the stage name ''Anna Kashfi'', the twenty-two-year-old played a [[Hindu]] girl. In her next film a year later, ''[[Battle Hymn (film)|Battle Hymn]]'' (1957), she co-starred with [[Rock Hudson]] as a Korean girl. A year after that she played a [[Mexican people|Mexican]] in ''[[Cowboy (1958 film)|Cowboy]]'' (1958) with [[Glenn Ford]] and [[Jack Lemmon]]. Her next and last film during this period was ''[[Night of the Quarter Moon]]'' (1959), where she played the African American wife of singer [[Nat King Cole]] and for which she received the Best Supporting Actress Award at the [[Cartagena Film Festival]] in 1961.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://former.imdb.com/title/tt0053113/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_5|title=Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)|author=peegeedee3|date=1 November 1959|publisher=Internet Movie Database|access-date=30 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217201329/http://former.imdb.com/title/tt0053113/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_5|archive-date=17 December 2014|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> She made a few appearances on television, including the series ''[[Adventures in Paradise (TV series)|Adventures in Paradise]]'', though drug and alcohol problems reportedly contributed to the premature end of her acting career.<ref>{{cite news |last=Thurber |first=Jon |date=27 January 2008 |title=Son of acting legend was guilty of killing his half-sister's lover |url=http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/27/local/me-brando27 |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |location=Los Angeles |access-date=2 April 2015 }}</ref>

==Personal life==
Kashfi married [[Marlon Brando]], whom she had met in the summer of 1956, on 11 October 1957. They divorced a year and a half later on 22 April 1959.

They had a son, [[Christian Brando|Christian Devi Brando]] (1958–2008), whom she called "Devi". Kashfi and Marlon fought bitterly over Christian, with Marlon eventually winning custody. In the 1990s, Christian was tried for killing his half-sister [[Cheyenne Brando|Cheyenne]]'s boyfriend. Jailed for the crime, he later died of pneumonia in Los Angeles in 2008, aged 49. Kashfi married James Hannaford, a salesman, in 1974.

==Death==
Kashfi died on 16 August 2015, in [[Woodland, Washington]] at 80 years old. She died six months after Brando's second wife [[Movita Castaneda]] died on 12 February 2015, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 98.<ref>{{cite web|last=Farrell |first=Paul |url=http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/08/anna-kashfi-joan-o-callaghan-marlon-brando-first-wife-dead-dies-rip-tribute-cause-of-death-funeral/ |title=Anna Kashfi Dead: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know |publisher=Heavy.com |accessdate=22 August 2015|date=21 August 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tmz.com/2015/08/21/marlon-brando-first-wife-dies-anna-kashfi-dead/ |title=Marlon Brando's First Wife Anna Kashfi Dead – British Actress Dies at 80 |publisher=TMZ.com |date=26 August 2014 |accessdate=22 August 2015}}</ref>

==Books==
* Anna K. Brando and [[Richard Arnold Epstein|E. P. Stein]], ''Brando for Breakfast'', Berkley Pub Group, 1980, {{ISBN|0-425-04698-2}}.

==Filmography==
* ''[[The Mountain (1956 film)|The Mountain]]'' (1956) – Hindu Girl
* ''[[Battle Hymn (film)|Battle Hymn]]'' (1957) – En Soon Yang
* ''[[Cowboy (1958 film)|Cowboy]]'' (1958) – Maria Vidal / Arriega
* ''[[Night of the Quarter Moon]]'' (1959) – Maria Robbin

==Television appearances==
* ''[[Adventures in Paradise (TV series)|Adventures in Paradise]]'' (1959) – Monique Le Febure
* ''[[The Deputy (TV series)|The Deputy]]'' (1960) – Felipa
* ''[[Bronco (TV series)|Bronco]]'' (1960) – Princess Natula

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Bibliography==
* Peter Manso, ''Brando. The Biography'', Hyperion, New York, 1994, {{ISBN|0-7868-6063-4}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Anna Kashfi}}
* {{IMDb name|0440542}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080916194636/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/elizabeth.ercocklly/kashfi.htm Anna Kashfi bio]
* [http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2004/07/11/story156558.asp Anna Kashfi 'cried tears of rage' upon hearing of Marlon Brando's death]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* {{Find a Grave|151046591}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kashfi, Anna}}
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:2015 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Darjeeling]]
[[Category:British film actresses]]
[[Category:British people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Anglo-Indian people]]
[[Category:Actresses from Cardiff]]
[[Category:British emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:American actresses of Indian descent]]
[[Category:20th-century British actresses]]
[[Category:20th-century American actresses]]
[[Category:British people of colonial India]]
[[Category:People from Kalama, Washington]]
[[Category:Brando family]]

Anna Kashfi - Revision history

imported>Bender the Bot at 16:19, 27 July 2021