Marlon Brando

He was an Oscar-winning actor, sporadic activist, aspiring author, and well-known oddball. Now that Marlon Brando has passed away, it appears that a new accomplishment—that of a scientific innovator—can be added to his extensive resume. A conga drum prototype made to Brando's specifications was discovered at a West Hollywood storage facility. After years of collaboration with Latin jazz drummer Poncho Sanchez, the actor patents his idea for tensioning drum heads in 2002. Sanchez told NPR.org that the innovation was "quite far-out". According to the website, Brando's approach substitutes a single tuning lever for the collection of bolts that surround the drum's head.

Marlon Brando, who loved to play the drums, worked on patenting a new conga drum at the end of his life that could be adjusted with only a single crank at the bottom as opposed to five or six screws at the top. For his drum-tuning method, Brando was granted four patents beginning in 2002. He passed away in 2004, however, before realizing his desire of seeing his idea go into production. Poncho Sanchez, a drummer, performed on a Brando drum in 2011. In response to a question regarding its viability, he remarked, "t sounded fairly fantastic, but it'd be too expensive to manufacture and people would be sending it back constantly. Yet, it was a clever concept.