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Yul Brynner


Yul Brynner (July 11, 1920[1] – October 10, 1985) was a Russian-born Broadway and Academy Award-winning 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 in The Magnificent Seven.


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Biography

He was born Yul Borisovich Brynner (Russian: Юлий Бори́сович Бри́нер) in Vladivostok, Russia. His mother, Marousia Blagоvidova, was the daughter of a Russian doctor and his father, Boris Bryner, was an engineer and inventor of Swiss and Mongolian ancestry. He was named Yul after his paternal grandfather, Jules Bryner.

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. A biography published by his son Rock Brynner in 1989 clarified these issues.

After Boris Bryner abandoned his family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Brynner, to Harbin, China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA, and in 1934 she took them to Paris, France. Early in his career he was photographed nude by George Platt Lynes.

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 4626 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. He is one of only seven people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award (Oscar) for the same role.

He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, appearing not only in the film version of The King and I that year, but also in major roles in The Ten Commandments opposite Charlton Heston and Anastasia opposite Ingrid Bergman.

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. His final feature film appearance was in the sequel to Westworld, titled Futureworld with Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, in 1976.

Death

Brynner died on October 10, 1985 (the same day as Orson Welles, his costar in The Battle of Neretva) in New York City at the age of 65. The cause of death was lung cancer brought on by smoking. Throughout his life, Brynner was always 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.[1] 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."

Yul Brynner is interred in the cemetery at the Saint-Michel-de-Bois-Aubry monastery in Luzé, near Poitiers, Vienne, France.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Blvd, and his childhood home, in Vladivostok, is now a museum.

Family life

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

Trivia

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Filmography

Preceded by:
Ernest Borgnine
for Marty		Academy Award for Best Actor
1956
for The King and I 		Succeeded by:
Sir Alec Guinness
for The Bridge on the River Kwai

Broadway

Notes

  1. ^ Record of Yul Brynner, #108-18-2984. Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index (Death Master File). Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2006.
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