Yul Brynner

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Yul Brynner

from the film Anastasia (1956)
Born Yuliy Borisovich Brynner
July 11, 1920(1920-07-11)
Vladivostok, Far Eastern Republic
Died October 10, 1985 (aged 65)
New York, New York
Years active 1944 - 1980
Spouse(s) Virginia Gilmore (1944-1960)
Doris Kleiner (1960-1967)
Jacqueline de Croisset (1971-1981)
Kathy Lee (1983-1985)

Yul Brynner (July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985)[1] was a Russian-born Academy Award-winning Broadway and Hollywood actor. He appeared in many movies and stage productions in the United States. He is best known for his portrayal of the Siamese king in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The King and I on the stage and on the screen, as well as Rameses II in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film The Ten Commandments and as Chris Adams in The Magnificent Seven.

He was noted for his deep, rich voice and for his shaved head, which he kept as a personal trademark since adopting it in his role in The King and I.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

He was born Yuliy Borisovich Brynner (Russian: Юлий Бори́сович Бри́нер) in Vladivostok, Russia. His mother, Marusya Blagovidova (Russian: Маруся Благовидова), was the daughter of a Russian Jewish doctor[2] and his father, Boris Brynner (Russian: Борис Бринер), was an alcoholic inventor and engineer born to a religious Jewish family, who spent his life denying his Judaism, claiming to be of Swiss and Mongolian ancestry.[3]

Brynner's early life was exotic, but he made it out to be even more exotic than it actually was, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin, in 1915. A biography published by his son Rock Brynner in 1989, and the diaries of the poet Todja Tartschoff Newman, with whom he went to cheder[4], clarified these issues.

After Boris Brynner abandoned his family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Bryner (Russian: Вера Бринер), to Harbin, China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA, and in 1934 she took them to Paris.

During WWII (1941-D-Day) Brynner worked as a French speaking radio announcer and commentator for the US Office of War Information, broadcasting propaganda to occupied France.

[edit] Career

He began acting and modeling in his twenties.

Brynner's best-known role was that of King Mongkut of Siam in the Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I which he played 4,626 times onstage over the span of his career. He appeared in the original production and subsequent touring productions, as well as a 1977 Broadway revival, and another Broadway revival in 1985. He also appeared in the film version for which he won an Academy Award as Best Actor, and in a short-lived TV version (Anna and the King) on CBS in 1972. Brynner is one of only nine people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role.

from the trailer for The Ten Commandments (1956).
from the trailer for The Ten Commandments (1956).

He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, appearing not only in The King and I that year, but also in major roles in The Ten Commandments opposite Charlton Heston and Anastasia opposite Ingrid Bergman. Brynner, at 5'10", was reportedly concerned about being overshadowed by Charlton Heston's physical presence in the film The Ten Commandments, and prepared with an intensive weight-lifting program.

He later starred in such films as the Biblical epic Solomon and Sheba (1959), as Solomon, The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Westworld (1973). He co-starred with Marlon Brando in Morituri; Katharine Hepburn in The Madwoman of Chaillot and William Shatner in a film version of The Brothers Karamazov. He starred with Barbara Bouchet in Death Rage, 1976. His final feature film appearance was in the sequel to Westworld, titled Futureworld with Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, in 1976.

Brynner also appeared in drag in an unbilled role in the Peter Sellers comedy The Magic Christian (1969).

Towards the end of his life he contracted trichinosis and subsequently sued Trader Vic's restaurant in the Plaza Hotel in New York City for serving him undercooked pork, from which, allegedly, he caught the disease.

[edit] Photographer, author, and musician

In addition to his work as a performer, Brynner was an active photographer, and wrote two books. His daughter Victoria put together a book of his photographs of family, friends, and fellow actors, as well as those he took while serving as a UN special consultant on refugees. The book is titled Yul Brynner: Photographer (ISBN 0-8109-3144-3). Brynner also published Bring Forth the Children: A Journey to the Forgotten People of Europe and the Middle East in 1960 and The Yul Brynner Cookbook: Food Fit for the King and You (ISBN 0-8128-2882-8) in 1983.

A student of music from childhood, Brynner was an accomplished guitarist and singer. In his early period in Europe he often played and sang gypsy songs in Parisian nightclubs with Aliosha Dimitrievitch. He sang some of those same songs in the film The Brothers Karamazov. In 1967, he and Dimitrievitch released a record album, The Gypsy and I: Yul Brynner Sings Gypsy Songs (Vanguard VSD 79265).

[edit] Personal life

Yul Brynner was married four times, the first three ending in divorce. He had three children and adopted two others.

  • His first wife, Virginia Gilmore (1944 – 1960), was an actress. They had one child, Yul Brynner II (born December 23, 1946), nicknamed when he was six "Rock" by his father in honor of boxer Rocky Graziano, who won the middleweight title in 1947. Rock is a historian, novelist and university history lecturer at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, CT.[5] In 2006, Rock wrote a book about his father and his family history titled "Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond."
  • Lark Brynner (born 1958) was born out of wedlock and raised by her mother.
  • His second wife, Doris Kleiner (1960 – 1967), was a Chilean model, whom he married on the set during shooting of The Magnificent Seven in 1960.[6] They had one child, Victoria Brynner (born November 1962), whose godmother was Audrey Hepburn.
  • His third wife, Jacqueline de Croisset (1971 – 1981), was a French socialite. She was the widow of Philippe de Croisset, a publishing executive. Yul and Jacqueline adopted two Vietnamese children: Mia (1974), and Melody (1975).
  • His fourth wife, Kathy Lee, born in Malaysia, was a dancer in The King and I shows.[7] They married in 1983.

Brynner also had an affair with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1950s and, allegedly, another with Judy Garland in the mid-1950s.[citation needed]

[edit] Death

Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985 (the same day as Orson Welles, his co star in The Battle of Neretva) in New York City.

Throughout his life, Brynner was often seen with a cigarette in his hand. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial.[8] A clip from that interview was made into just such a public service announcement by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death; it includes the warning "Now that I'm gone, I tell you, don't smoke." This advertisement is now featured in the Body Worlds exhibition.

Yul Brynner is interred in the cemetery at the Saint-Michel-de-Bois-Aubry monastery not far from Luzé, between Tours and Poitiers, Vienne, France.

[edit] Credits

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Features

[edit] Broadway credits

[edit] Radio and Television credits

[edit] Honors and awards

Brynner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Blvd, and his childhood home, in Vladivostok, is now a museum. He made "Top 10 stars of the year", in both 1957 and 1958.

[edit] Popular culture references

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • He is referenced in a Toy Dolls song entitled "Yul Brynner was a Skinhead". The lyrics, contrary to the title, humorously point out that Brynner can't be a skinhead since he's not wearing Dr. Martens boots and doesn't have any tattoos.
  • Brynner's appearances in Westworld and The King and I are noted in former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus's song "Jo Jo's Jacket." It features a clip of Brynner's voice and the lyrics "I have a bald head, my name is Yul Brynner, and I am a famous movie star!" The song appears on Malkmus's first solo album, Stephen Malkmus.
  • Brynner's role as the king of Siam in The King and I is also referenced in the 1984 song "One Night in Bangkok" from the musical Chess, in which the lyrics describe Bangkok as "the creme de la creme of the chess world in a show with everything but Yul Brynner".[9] (Bangkok is the capital of the former Siam, now Thailand.)
  • Yul Brynner (changed to Yule Brenna for the movie) was the name of one of the four Jamaican Bobsledders in the 1993 hit comedy, Cool Runnings. The part was played by actor Malik Yoba and is his first major acting role.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Record of Yul Brynner, #108-18-2984. Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index (Death Master File). Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2006.
  2. ^ Yul Brynner: Actor | Jewish,Synagogue,Torah,Judaism,Kosher
  3. ^ Yul Brynner: Actor | Jewish,Synagogue,Torah,Judaism,Kosher
  4. ^ Yul Brynner: Actor | Jewish,Synagogue,Torah,Judaism,Kosher
  5. ^ Mosnews.com
  6. ^ http://www.elsur.cl/archivo/marzo2000/22marzo2000/elsur/despacho/opinion4.htm
  7. ^ ITDb: Show Query: The King and I
  8. ^ http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/musc/ybpsa2.wvx
  9. ^ Chess Lyrics - One Night In Bangkok Lyrics

[edit] External links

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Academy Award for Best Actor

Gary Cooper (1941) · James Cagney (1942) · Paul Lukas (1943) · Bing Crosby (1944) · Ray Milland (1945) · Fredric March (1946) · Ronald Colman (1947) · Laurence Olivier (1948) · Broderick Crawford (1949) · José Ferrer (1950) · Humphrey Bogart (1951) · Gary Cooper (1952) · William Holden (1953) · Marlon Brando (1954) · Ernest Borgnine (1955) · Yul Brynner (1956) · Alec Guinness (1957) · David Niven (1958) · Charlton Heston (1959) · Burt Lancaster (1960)

Complete List · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present)
Persondata
NAME Brynner, Yul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brynner, Yuliy Borisovich
SHORT DESCRIPTION actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Vladivostok, Russian SFSR
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1985
PLACE OF DEATH New York, New York, U.S.