In “The Godfather,” Marlon Brando played the title role of Don Corleone, a ruthless gangster in a world where everything was “strictly business, nothing personal.”

Now his trustees, including film producer Mike Medavoy, are planning to make a business out of Brando’s personal legacy by licensing his image and by building a hotel on one of the Polynesian islands Brando owned.

Medavoy, a Brando friend, was involved in such films as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Annie Hall” and “Platoon.” The other co-trustees are Medavoy’s brother-in-law, Larry Dressler, an accountant, and Avra Douglas, a Brando family friend who went to school with some of his children.

Brando was 80 when he died of lung disease at UCLA Medical Center in 2004. Soon after the legendary actor’s death at least a dozen lawsuits were filed, several of which allege Brando’s signature that named Medavoy and his partners as new executors was forged. All but one suit has been settled; it is in settlement talks.

With the likelihood that the estate battles are nearing an end, Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas are discussing their plans for the future of the Brando trust including a $50 million eco-resort on a Polynesian island and the development of a Brando brand through new licensing enterprises.

“We settled the suits and are moving forward,” said Medavoy, who met with the Business Journal last week at his Beverly Park home. “Now we have to do the best thing for the people he left in his will.”

Medavoy said Brando, who lived in a hilltop complex on Mulholland Drive that actor Jack Nicholson purchased from the trust, had a range of ideas to provide for his heirs, including the development of the hotel.

However, Brando was known for his desire for privacy, so confidants question whether he would approve commercialization of his name and image.

“He’s gone now, so we can only estimate,” said George Englund, an actor and director who was friends with Brando for 48 years. “My estimation is that any photographs, and that kind of thing, he would be dubious about.” Englund said that although Brando had discussed plans for the hotel, he had decided not to proceed with them. “He always looked at himself as a temporary tenant and wanted to pass it on in its state of purity.”

At least one of the plaintiffs in the litigation has also been critical of the development plans.

“The estate broke a promise Marlon made to the Polynesian people,” Jo An Corrales told the Los Angeles Times in 2005.

The effort to turn the Brando name and image into a profitable business will be handled under Brando Enterprises LP. Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas formed the partnership in 2007, and will begin operations within the next few months.

The co-trustees defended the concept.

“I think he would see the necessity of doing this in order to provide for his kids,” Douglas said. “I don’t think we have done anything that is not tasteful. Nothing we have done would embarrass him.”

There are eight beneficiaries of the trust. Six are his biological children, two others are the children of his Tahitian wife before he married her. He did not name his adopted daughter as a beneficiary of the trust.

Those who specialize in branding celebrities said it can be difficult to turn licensing deals into lucrative businesses. But Brando is of such stature that he could prove an exception.

“He is an icon, and I think there will always be interest in Brando for merchandising,” said Bela Lugosi, son of the famed horror film actor and an entertainment lawyer in the Los Angeles office of Arent Fox LLP who represents the company that licenses Three Stooges property.

A recent example of a celebrity whose name and image has been commercialized is Bob Marley. Last week, the reggae singer’s family entered a joint venture with private equity firm Hilco Consumer Capital to license the late singer’s name and image for numerous products, including apparel, food and video games. That way, the Marley image is protected and the estate benefits from its use. (See article, page 3.)

Legal onslaught

The ventures are moving forward as settlements have resolved years of litigation that pitted the three against several of Brando’s former employees, including business manager Corrales, secretary Alice Marchak and caregiver Angela Borlaza. Deborah Brando, the ex-wife of Brando’s son Christian, also filed suit against the co-trustees.

According to court documents, Borlaza and Deborah Brando allege that when Brando signed an amendment to his will he was incapacitated. Brando signed the amendment, which removed Corrales and Marchak as executors of his estate, and replaced them with Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas, less than two weeks before his death in July 2004.

Attorneys for Corrales, Marchak, Borlaza and Deborah Brando did not return calls seeking comment.

Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas said the actor discussed his plans to change the will on several occasions.

“He had mentioned it to me some years before he died that he wanted me to be an executor for him,” Douglas said. “He said a lot of things that I assumed he wasn’t going to follow up on.”

Douglas went to school with Brando’s children, and worked for the actor as his personal assistant and with him on various creative projects.

Medavoy had done some movies with Brando over the years, but won Brando’s trust at actor Sean Penn’s wedding to Robin Wright Penn in 1996. Brando was impressed when he saw that Penn respected Medavoy, and they developed a relationship.

“Sean was close to him, he paved the way for our friendship,” Medavoy said.

Dressler, who is married to Medavoy’s sister, is a Santa Monica accountant with wealthy clients. He handled Brando’s business matters during the last four months of his life.

“I have been an executor at least half a dozen times,” Dressler said. “Because of the relationships with my clients, it’s natural for them to appoint me as an executor or successor trustee.”

The details behind Brando’s amended will, and whether the signature was forged, have never been fully litigated in court because all but one suit settled in private mediation.

The suit filed by Deborah Brando is still pending, but is also heading to private mediation.

The co-trustees said the litigation has taken a large chunk of the trust’s financial resources, but declined to say how much.

“If it wasn’t for all of these people who came out of the woodwork, some of the family would have some of this money that has been wasted,” Medavoy said.

Tahitian sanctuary

Brando first visited Polynesia during filming of “Mutiny on the Bounty” in the early 1960s, and fell in love with the South Pacific culture. He purchased part of Tetiaroa, a chain of islands, in 1966 for $200,000, then bought the rest in 1967 for an additional $70,000. Tetiaroa sits 35 miles from Tahiti and consists of a 13-island atoll circled by a coral reef.

Brando built the Hotel Tetiaroa Village, a cluster of bungalows frequented by family and friends. In 2004, the French Polynesian government shut down the hotel because the landing strip on the island did not meet safety standards. The hotel has remained closed and is in a state of decay.

Brando stopped visiting Tetiaroa in 1990, after his son, Christian, killed the boyfriend of Cheyenne, his half-sister. Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995. Christian ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case, and served five years in prison. Christian died of pneumonia in 2008.

Although Brando never returned to the island in his later years, Tahitian developer Richard Bailey said he started talking with the actor in 1999 about developing an environmentally sustainable resort.

Bailey has experience with projects in Tahiti and owns four hotels in the region under the InterContinental name. His company, Tahiti Beachcomber SA, paid the trustees $2 million upfront in 2005.

Bailey has a 60-year ground lease that allows him to develop Onetahi, the island where Brando built his hotel. A company owned by the Brando trust, SA Frangipani, will begin receiving $100,000 per year in rent in 2011. When the hotel begins operation, the trust will get either 4.75 percent of the resort’s gross revenue or $400,000 a year, whichever is greater, in exchange for the right to name the hotel the Brando.

Lodgings will be in 40 bungalows. Each is to have a small pool called a plunge pool. The complex is expected to feature the usual amenities at a luxury resort: a spa, fitness center and community pool. It will offer fly-fishing, scuba diving and archaeology tours of Tahitian royalty sites.

Bailey said Brando had numerous ideas for how to create an eco-friendly resort, and went as far as submitting a building permit application.

“The project is about realizing Marlon’s vision,” Bailey said. “And it’s about making something that will resonate with visitors.”

Construction was scheduled to begin in 2006, and the resort was to be completed in 2008. However, things did not go as planned.

David Seeley, a Washington attorney who handles the trust’s affairs, said the delays were caused in part by Polynesia’s rocky political climate, which made it nearly impossible to secure building permits for the hotel.

In December, the co-trustees met with the current president of Tahiti and other government officials in Los Angeles to speed up the permit process. The meeting proved fruitful, with the necessary authorization secured.

Now, Bailey said, the economic downturn is making it tough to get financing for the project.

Bailey expects the hotel to cost upward of $50 million to develop, and he is planning on investing more in boats, small propeller airplanes and alternative sources of energy.

Currently, a new airstrip that meets the government’s safety standards is being built on the island. Bailey then plans to begin construction on a bridge over the corral reef that will allow equipment to be delivered to the island without doing environmental damage.

Bailey said much of Brando’s original hotel has rotted, battered from time and the weather. However, there is one structure that Bailey plans to keep intact: Dirty Old Bob’s Bar.

The bar, which is shaped like an octagon, was named after one of Brando’s Hollywood friends. Bailey said the actor was fond of the bar and was fascinated by the octagonal shape.

“The bartender is in the center and guests sit around, and as a consequence you have to have eye contact,” Bailey said. “Brando found that this type of shape was conducive to social interaction.”

Bailey plans to incorporate some of Brando’s ideas to make the hotel environmentally friendly, including a deep-sea pipe that will pump cold water from the depths of ocean. The water will be used to chill the air in the hotel. The technology is being used at a resort Bailey developed at Bora Bora. Bailey also said he plans to install solar panels for energy.

Wild one

Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas hired Indiana licensing agent CMG Worldwide to procure licensing deals reviewed and approved by the co-trustees. The company also created the official Brando Web site.

One of those licensing deals includes an iPhone commercial featuring Brando, alongside other actors, saying “hello” over the phone.

The co-trustees also teamed up with Paramount to license and market Brando’s “Godfather” character, including collectable figurines, apparel and American greeting cards.

Dressler declined to comment on how much the trust receives as a result of the marketing and licensing deals.

In 2004, the co-trustees filed for U.S. trademark protection of Brando’s name and image, listing numerous items such as apparel, sunglasses and refrigerator magnets as products that should be trademarked.

At the time, the co-trustees said that the application was filed to prevent others from making money from unauthorized Brando products.

However, the co-trustees are ready to expand the Brando brand, and over the next two years want to market the image of Brando when he was young, in films such as 1953’s “The Wild One.”

The time that Medavoy, Dressler and Douglas are now putting into the trust’s new ventures is a welcome change to the hours they have spent handling the litigation.

Medavoy said he didn’t quite know what he was getting into when he became co-executor of Brando’s trust.

“A lot of stuff has come up, a lot of the lawsuits, and you have that and you have some dysfunctional aspects to it,” he said. “I suppose nothing is ever clear and clean, and it has been a little more messy than I thought it would be.”