Kicking off the New Year our Star of the Month for January is very versatile actor Yul Brynner. Born July 11, 1920 in Vladivostok Russia to a Swiss-Mongolian engineer (later refuted by his son) Boris Brynner and mother Marousia. His father abandoned the family and his mother took he and his sister to China and thence to Paris where he became a musician learning the guitar and began singing gypsy songs in Parisian nightclubs. Whilst in Paris he befriended a man named Jean Cocteau sparking rumors of his bisexuality he joined a repertory company. Little known thereafter he became a trapeze artist but by age 21 he moved to the States joined a theater company and supplemented his income as a nude model and his acting career began when he enrolled with Russian teacher Michael Chekhov. He hit the Broadway stage in 1946 as a Chinese student named Tsai-Yong in a play called Lute Sang.
The first film followed in 1949 Port of New York where he co-starred with Richard Rober and Scott Brady. Brynner plays a vicious but debonair drug dealer who will murder anyone who stands in his way. Next came what would be his most famous role in Oscar and Hammerstein’s The King and I in 1951 starring opposite Gertrude Lawrence. By the way Mary Martin as some may know was Larry Hagman’s mother of, I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas fame recommended Brynner for the role. Rex Harrison was first considered but he was unavailable but in hindsight the right actor got the role. Yul received wide acclaim both critical and commercial for his performance in this most remembered musical that is often covered again and again.
The play ran for more than 3 years an unprecedented number of 1,246 performances for the time and it followed suit that he would reprise the role in film in 1956 and win the Oscar for best actor. It was Deborah Kerr who played the role of Anna. Kerr a huge star on her own did need dubbing of her singing however sang adroitly by Marni Nixon. The film won 5 Oscars and Kerr was also nominated for Best Actress. The role of the Siamese Monarch was his signature role but Brynner would leave his mark in many roles, as we will see.
Brynner helped create the mystery about his persona by exaggeration and claiming that he was born on the Island of Sakhalin Island in Russia claimed his name was Taidje Khan his father a Mongol and his mother a gypsy and even fellow Hollywood actors were confused as to his true ethnicity, which helped foster the romanticizing of him throughout his career especially among his women devotees.
Yul and Hollywood took advantage of his all world look every chance he could. He starred in The Ten Commandments in 1956 as an Egyptian Pharaoh, a Russian general in Anastasia then a of all things a mercenary cowboy in The Magnificent Seven alongside Steve McQueen in 1960.
In addition to his acting prowess Brynner was a noted photographer, wrote several books including a cookbook. Even after his death from lung cancer he appeared posthumously in a public service announcement wherein he linked his fatal lung cancer to cigarette smoking.
Yul Brynner sired 5 children including 4 daughters and 1 son was married 4 times and had two significant others of notoriety in Claire Bloom and Marlene Dietrich. Was one of the very few actors to garner both a Tony and Oscar for the same role.
Yul Brynner was an arrogant SOB said some of those behind and in front of him in fact when confronted about all his conflicted biographical information he’d given he retorted: “Ordinary mortals need but one birthday” Later in life Frank Langella a costar stated Brynner was never far from a full length mirror. On the set of the Magnificent Seven he would feud openly and behind the scenes with the equally arrogant Steve McQueen as each looked to one up the other during the filming. Brynner did everything he could to avoid adoring fans every chance he could get. Yul worked assiduously at engraving his legend. Whether he was adorned in pleated skirts as pharoh or black denim as an outlaw he wore both costumes well especially with a clean-shaven head, arched eyebrows and penetrating stare.
By the 70’s the gritty character he often portrayed with brooding expressions was becoming passé and last hurrah came in 1973’s West World wherein he played a murderous robot that malfunctioned. Now considered a cult classic. In the last decade of his life Yul spent much of his time reprising Mongkut in endless tours of The King and I and maximizing his merchandising including ones for his cookbook. He married for the 4th time at age 62 to a young ingénue of 24 a Malaysian ballerina but in that same year he found a lump in his vocal cords his throat was fine but he has inoperable lung cancer even though he has quit smoking a decade before. As mentioned before his posthumous ad said quote: Now that I’m gone, I tell you don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. He died October 10, 1985. Yul Brynner loaded with egocentricities but nonetheless an icon.
