The Sweet Treat Marlon Brando Loved

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Marlon Brando is known for many things: his award-winning acting career, his commitment to civil rights, his turbulent love life, and his youthful good looks. What you may not know is that Brando simply couldn't resist ice cream. In fact, it became a serious problem.

On "The Graham Norton Show," Joan Collins said that when she was a young, aspiring actress, Brando would come over to her place and eat all of her ice cream. His love of ice cream (and subsequent weight struggles) seemed to escalate during the filming of "The Mutiny on the Bounty," where Brando was notoriously difficult. Allegedly, he rowed away from film production with a five-gallon tub of ice cream, which he finished by himself. This quirk did not endear him to the film crew.

It's difficult to verify some stories about Brando's love for ice cream — though it may have been a contributing factor to why he supposedly split 52 pairs of pants while filming "The Mutiny on the Bounty." He was also known to frequent C.C. Brown's in Los Angeles, one of the old-school ice cream shops that vanished. Those who knew Brando said he loved ice cream and melted chocolate tucked in a halved coconut shell (who wouldn't?). When travel blogger Citizen Femme visited Bob's Bar, a restaurant on Tetiaroa, Brando's private Polynesian atoll, she tried a version with coconut ice cream and said it was so delicious, she "will think about [it] for the rest of my life."

Unfortunately, not all of us can afford a trip to the eco-luxury resort on Marlon Brando's private atoll, but we can reproduce his favorite treat at home. Start by grabbing a coconut from the produce section, hopefully pre-split. If not, one tip for how to open a coconut safely is to hit it at its weakest point with the non-sharp edge of a knife.

You're going to need some coconut ice cream to put inside the halved coconut. Unfortunately, this might be difficult to find in many supermarkets, but coconut gelato is available on Amazon. If you prefer to DIY it, an easy recipe for coconut ice cream is among the creative ways to use coconut milk. 

Next up, melted chocolate! Choose your favorite plain chocolate bar and choose one of the best ways to melt chocolate (the microwave is an option). If it's too thick for your taste, thin the melted chocolate out with a little coconut oil, cocoa butter, or paramount crystals. Pour it over the ice cream, find a shady spot under a (palm) tree, and enjoy the fruit of your labor, just like Brando did.