Considered by some to be one of the finest actors of his generation, Marlon Brando has also had personal experience of mental illness, his daughter Cheyenne having lived with schizophrenia for several years.

Born in 1924, Brando began his film career in 1947 with 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and later won an Oscar for Best Actor in 'On the Waterfront' and 'The Godfather'. But in the 1990s the media turned its attention to his personal life rather than his creative endeavours.

Brando's daughter Cheyenne, born in 1970, developed schizophrenia in her late teens and eventually took her own life in 1995. Understandably Brando experienced a period of depression after this loss.

In 1998 Brando's daughter Petra, inspired by her sister's illness, made a documentary 'Cursing at the Sun' exploring the experiences of people with mental illness in the wake of deinstitutionalisation in the US. As Petra later said about her sister Cheyenne 'I don't think she got the treatment that would have benefited her'.

Brando returned to film in the nineties with 'Don Juan DeMarco' and 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' and more recently 'The Score'.