Feathers fly in the latest legal dust-up over Brando

Now an Internet website featuring photographs of Brando's pet chickens has feathers flying.

Attorneys for the Brando estate have taken legal steps to shut down marlonbrando.com, as well as other Brando websites, saying it's all part of an ongoing effort to develop the Marlon Brando name and likeness into a "brand package" that will be licensed by approved vendors.

That has Brando's former business manager crying fowl

Jo An Corrales of Kalama, Wash., who was a personal friend of the late actor for 40 years, is already locked in litigation with the estate over her claims that Brando sexually harassed her. As to the more recent fight, the actor personally gave her permission in 2002 to operate the website, even joking that he wanted her to list everyone he didn't like on it. Corrales said Brando, who died of lung failure at 80 on July 1, 2004, also told her she could do with the website as she pleased.

So, the recently launched site has a photo gallery of Brando's chickens, some of the 35 exotic and rare birds that he asked Corrales to buy back in 2001 and which she has raised from day-old chicks on her 12-acre orchard ever since. (Chickens, at least ones not destined for the dinner table, can live up to 12 years.)

Elizabeth A. Bawden, the attorney for the estate, said in a statement earlier this week that applications have been filed to register the Marlon Brando trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the estate is also in the process of acquiring Internet domain names that incorporate the Marlon Brando name.

But we digress.

Back at the farm, one of Brando's roosters is named Capone, which became the pet of Christian Brando, the actor's eldest son. Corrales said the chicken was trained to jump off a roof into Christian's arms. "To me, the chickens represent not a fur coat or Hollywood or anything else except that Marlon loved this farm," Corrales said in a telephone interview. "He came here every month for a year. He had his own guest house and these were his chickens."

Corrales said it was Brando's idea to buy them. He wanted 100; she bought only 35, and one died. That drew Brando's wrath, she recalled.

"He said, 'What do you mean you got 34 chickens?' I was caught red-handed