Marlon Brando’s 1954 Vacheron Constantin Watch Was a Gift from Zsa Zsa Gabor—We Got an Exclusive Look
Marlon Brando’s most famous watch is the Rolex GMT Master Reference 1675 he wore in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. Missing its bezel and looking as naked and abused as Brando’s cracked-up character Kurtz, Brando’s derelict Rolex sold in 2019 for $1,950,200, and then again in 2023 for just under $5 million. Then there’s the Rolex Datejust Brando wore in The Godfather, also a rather well-known watch.
But there’s another, lesser-known watch that belonged to Marlon Brando. While this watch can claim neither film credits nor remarkable auction results, Brando’s Vacheron Constantin is a time capsule that speaks of a younger, more feminine Marlon Brando.
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Hungarian movie star and glamour queen Zsa Zsa Gabor gave Brando this solid-gold Vacheron Constantin in recognition of Brando’s 1954 Oscar for On the Waterfront. It is a small, delicate, and refined watch that sold to an anonymous buyer (which we assume to be the current owner, Vacheron Constantin) in 2007 for just $18,000. Even more remarkable, Antiquorum estimated in 2007 the watch could sell for as little as $2500. This figure is a good reminder of just how underdeveloped wristwatch collecting was until quite recently.
Vacheron Constantin granted Robb Report exclusive permission to handle, wear, and photograph Brando’s watch, a privilege we don’t take lightly. Vacheron Constantin has shepherded this watch (along with those formerly belonging to major heads of state) from Geneva to various locales including California and Manhattan, where we spent time with it recently.
Aside from the remarkable provenance, the watch is a striking thing of beauty in and of itself. It is exemplary not only of Vacheron Constantin’s prowess during the 1950s, but of the incredible level of Swiss watchmaking more generally during what many consider “the golden age of wristwatches.” By the 1950s, Vacheron Constantin had—along with the other members of the Horological Holy Trinity, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet—hit its stride as the watchmaker serving a new breed of high-class democratic citizens.
Unlike Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, however, Vacheron Constantin varied its designs so vastly that almost every Vacheron from this period remains incredibly rare. Estimates usually speculate that only around 20 of each dial variant was produced, and these were sent far and wide across many markets in order to maintain the likelihood that an owner of a Vacheron Constantin would not come across another watch like their own. This makes collecting mid-century Vacheron Constantin watches challenging, rewarding and surprisingly affordable—especially when it comes to the widely varied time-only models. Brando’s watch, however, would likely fetch a seven-figure price tag today.
It is often difficult to convey the presence of these older Vacheron Constantin dress watches. Our photographs attempt to bring some of that magic to your eye, but it is when wearing these watches that they truly reveal their charms. These mid-century Vacherons are exceptional examples of quiet luxury long before the phrase even existed: They exude luxury for the person wearing them while broadcasting understated elegance to the rest of the world. This watch’s subtle luxury is embodied in the incredible guilloché dial, its delicate, hand-worked wave pattern more striking under a loupe magnifier than at arm’s length, but also more striking at arm’s length than from across the room. The closer you get, the better it is—that’s quiet luxury in a nutshell. The applied solid gold markers and elegant pencil hands are typical of Vacheron Constantin’s understated refinement during the mid-century, while the thin yellow-gold case is quiet yet exquisite.
Not that much is known about Marlon Brando and Zsa Zsa Gabor’s relationship, and even less is known about this watch (Vacheron Constantin claims to know very little). No photos of Brando and Gabor together seem to be available. She once claimed to have met Marlon Brando on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which got its start in 1962, so this is clearly not a correct account, given the 1954 date on the watch. (Gabor reports in her autobiography that Brando said he wanted to have sex with her during the Carson taping, and that when her mother asked her why she put up with “such a truck driver,” Zsa Zsa said she loved every minute of it.) Brando is known to have had many lovers, as well as three wives; meanwhile, Gabor famously tore through nine marriages. So, the idea of their sharing an intimate relationship hardly seems far-fetched. And yet the engraved watch—a rather formal gift commemorating Brando’s Oscar—seems somehow platonic, a gift between friends, perhaps. We may never know the real story.
While Brando of Apocalypse Now brought forward a broken and violent masculinity, what many seem to have forgotten about the legendary actor is that one of his many gifts on stage and before the camera was his near perfect balance of feminine and masculine qualities. His enormous frame, broad chest, and chiseled features were offset by his high-pitched voice, soft lips, and swimming-pool eyes. His rage on stage would explode to reveal a deep vulnerability and tenderness. Brando’s sexuality bent in real life as much as his gender when acting, and yet we tend to forget this fluidity as his obesity, family dramas and roles as an insane military leader and merciless gangster crowd our memories.
But in 1954, Brando was at the height of his talents, bringing American acting up to and past to the British standard for the first time, with a realism achieved through that delicate balancing of gender qualities that pretty much no one before or after mastered in the same way. We don’t think it would be a stretch to say that this Vacheron Constantin embodies that same balance of bravado and delicacy that seems to be coming back in vogue today as smaller, dressier watches gain popularity once again—and we think that’s a good thing.
See more photos of Marlon Brando’s Vacheron Constantin below.
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