![]() “Welcome to paradise,” he says, rolling a cigarette. The clearing around it is littered with lawn toys and coconut shells, which serve as food bowls for a dozen scrawny cats. He packs the provisions into the wheelbarrow and navigates his way to a ramshackle cabin, the former staff quarters of the hotel his father had built decades ago and which has since fallen to ruin. ![]() Bailey has brought a bag of essentials that includes bread, fresh produce, and a Nintendo Wii, which Teihotu will plug into a generator, the only power source on the island. The first to disembark from the helicopter is Dick Bailey, a Louisiana-born developer who is about to build a controversial five-star “eco hotel” called The Brando on Tetiaroa, employing Teihotu as its caretaker. Teihotu lives on the remote island alone with his wife and the youngest of their three children, surviving on the fish he spears, the fruit he picks, and whatever provisions his occasional visitors can bring from Tahiti, 30 miles away. At 45, Teihotu Brando, Marlon’s third-born son, has his father’s noble profile and a hint of his generous waistline. He is sitting in a wheelbarrow, a peculiar but fitting throne for the new king of Tetiaroa. On the ground a Polynesian man dressed like an L.A. ![]() Once the retreat of Tahitian royalty, it became the island kingdom of one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic figures. From above, the atoll, which consists of 13 white-sand islets encircled by a coral reef, shimmers like a turquoise amulet. Now it can only accommodate a helicopter. It was shut down in 2004, the year the actor died. Overrun with tropical weeds, the airstrip on Tetiaroa-Marlon Brando’s private island in the South Pacific-is barely detectable from the sky.
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