Yul Brynner - Biography - IMDb Yul Brynner Biography Showing all 67 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (4) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (45) | Personal Quotes (7) | Salary (3) Overview (4) 5' 8" (1.73 m) Mini Bio (1) Exotic leading man of American films, famed as much for his completely bald head as for his performances, Yul Brynner masked much of his life in mystery and outright lies designed to tease people he considered gullible. It was not until the publication of the books "Yul: The Man Who Would Be King" and "Empire and Odyssey" by his son, Yul "Rock" Brynner, that many of the details of Brynner's early life became clear.

Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor, and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German and Russian descent. He was born in their home town of Vladivostok on 11 July 1920 and named Yuli after his grandfather, Jules Bryner. When Yuli's father abandoned the family, his mother took him and his sister Vera to Harbin, Manchuria, where they attended a YMCA school. In 1934 Yuli's mother took her children to Paris. Her son was sent to the exclusive Lycée Moncelle, but his attendance was spotty. He dropped out and became a musician, playing guitar in the nightclubs among the Russian gypsies who gave him his first real sense of family. He met luminaries such as Jean Cocteau and became an apprentice at the Theatre des Mathurins. He worked as a trapeze artist with the famed Cirque d'Hiver company.

He traveled to the U.S. in 1941 to study with acting teacher Michael Chekhov and toured the country with Chekhov's theatrical troupe. That same year, he debuted in New York as Fabian in "Twelfth Night" (billed as Youl Bryner). After working in a very early TV series, Mr. Jones and His Neighbors (1944), he played on Broadway in "Lute Song" with Mary Martin , winning awards and mild acclaim. He and his wife, actress Virginia Gilmore , starred in the first TV talk show, Mr. and Mrs. (1948). Brynner then joined CBS as a television director. He made his film debut in Port of New York (1949). Two years later Mary Martin recommended him for the part he would forever be known for: the King in Richard Rodgers ' and Oscar Hammerstein II 's musical "The King and I". Brynner became an immediate sensation in the role, repeating it for film ( The King and I (1956)) and winning the Oscar for Best Actor.

For the next two decades, he maintained a starring film career despite the exotic nature of his persona, performing in a wide range of roles from Egyptian pharaohs to Western gunfighters, almost all with the same shaved head and indefinable accent. In the 1970s he returned to the role that had made him a star, and spent most of the rest of his life touring the world in "The King and I". When he developed lung cancer in the mid 1980s, he left a powerful public service announcement denouncing smoking as the cause, for broadcast after his death. The cancer and its complications, after a long illness, ended his life. Brynner was cremated and his ashes buried in a remote part of France, on the grounds of the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Bois Aubry, a short distance outside the village of Luzé. He remains one of the most fascinating, unusual and beloved stars of his time.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver < jumblejim@prodigy.net> Spouse (4) Deep authoritative voice Trivia (45) In 1950, before he achieved fame, he was the director of a children's puppet show on CBS, Life with Snarky Parker (1950), which lasted barely eight months on the air before cancellation. Had one son with his first wife, actress Virginia Gilmore : Yul "Rock" Brynner II (born December 23, 1946). Daughter Lark Brynner (born 1958) was born out of wedlock. She was raised by her mother, German actress Frances Martin . Had one daughter with his second wife, Doris Kleiner : Victoria Brynner (born November 1962 in Switzerland). Had two daughters with his third wife, Jacqueline de Croisset: Mia Brynner (adopted 1974, born in Vietnam) and Melody Brynner (adopted 1974, born in Vietnam).

Despite numerous resources stating that Brynner was interred at the non-existent "Saint Robert Churchyard at the Monastery of Saint Michael", Brynner actually was buried in the Orthodox cemetery Saint-Michel-du-Bois-Aubry of Luzé, a village 55km from Tours in Touraine, France. Yul's paternal grandfather, Julius Bryner, was of Swiss-German origin (Julius was the son of Johannes Bruner and Marie Huber Von Windisch). Yul's paternal grandmother, Natalya Iosifovna Kurkutova, was Russian, from Irkutsk, and was said to be of part Mongolian/Buryat ancestry. Yul's maternal grandparents, Dmitriy Evgrafovich Blagovidov and Anna Timofeevna Kireeva, were also Russian, from Penza. Is a recipient of the presitigious Connor Award, given by the brothers of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity based out of Emerson College in Boston. He died on the same day as his The Battle on the River Neretva (1969) co-star Orson Welles : October 10, 1985.

While touring in the play "Odyssey" in the mid-1970s, he attained a reputation for being a holy terror toward hotel staff members. Among other things, all hotel suites where he would stay had to be painted a certain shade of tan and all kitchens in those hotel suites had to be stocked in advance with "one dozen brown eggs, under no circumstances white ones!" (this should be noted, in fairness, that Brynner personally paid the expense of these requests). The play itself, later retitled "Home, Sweet Homer", had a successful pre-Broadway tour of over a year, but lasted exactly one performance when it opened on Broadway in 1976. He was an accomplished photographer. He took many photos on the sets of the various projects he worked on over the years. Mentioned in the popular mid-1980s song "One Night in Bangkok", sung by Murray Head , from the soundtrack of the musical "Chess".

When he found out he would be playing Pharaoh Rameses II opposite Charlton Heston 's Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956) and that he would be shirtless for most of the film, he began a rigorous weight lifting program because he did not want to be physically overshadowed by Charlton Heston (which explains his buffer than normal physique during The King and I (1956) another film he was set to work on at the time.) A recording of him explaining how being bald helped him is included in a song by Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement) titled "Jo Jo's Jacket". The first verses are about Brynner and include a reference to Westworld (1973) and The King and I (1956). Won Broadway's 1952 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Musical) for "The King and I", a role he recreated in his Oscar-winning performance in the film of the same name, The King and I (1956). He also won a second, Special Tony Award in 1985 "honoring his 4,525 performances in 'The King and I'".

Is one of only eight actors to have won both a Tony and an Oscar for having portrayed the same roles on stage and screen. The others are Joel Grey ( Cabaret (1972)), Shirley Booth ( Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)), Rex Harrison ( My Fair Lady (1964)), Anne Bancroft ( The Miracle Worker (1962)), Paul Scofield ( A Man for All Seasons (1966)), José Ferrer ( Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)) and Jack Albertson ( The Subject Was Roses (1968)). Three of his films were remade in the late 1990s, in rapid succession, as animated films: The King and I (1956) and Anastasia (1956) were remade as animated films of the same name The King and I (1999), Anastasia (1997)) and The Ten Commandments (1956) was remade as The Prince of Egypt (1998). Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives".

Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 111-114. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. According to his son, Yul "Rock" Brynner, "In his youth, Yul Brynner was Jean Cocteau 's opium supplier." Empire and Odyssey, p. 141. Audrey Hepburn is the godmother of his daughter Victoria. Always prepared breakfast while wearing a silk kimono. He was a great believer in rituals. Was very good friends with Deborah Kerr . He badly wanted to play the title role in Spartacus (1960) and the role of Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). Daughter Victoria Brynner is a successful businesswoman who founded her own company Stardust Visions and Stardust Celebrities in Los Angeles (1992). Was acting in an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' (his Broadway debut), when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. That night's show was canceled and most of the crew enlisted soon after.

The show lasted only 15 performances and Brynner was out of a job until 1943. Stan Lee used his physical likeness (noticeably his bald head and intense stare) as the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of Professor Charles Xavier in the ''X-Men'' comics (created in 1963). Brynner was 43 years old at the point. Had played the role of King Mongkut of Siam on stage, in the movies and on a short-lived television series. When Brynner formed his own company Alciona to produce films in which he would both star in and direct, he commissioned Jean Cocteau to design the logo for the company stationary. After seeing Brynner in the play "Lute Song" with Mary Martin in 1949, Judy Garland wanted to do a film version of it, so she asked him to do a screen test with her. Nothing came of it, but it led to the actor's screen debut that year in Port of New York (1949).

When he got the offer to star in "The King and I" on Broadway, Brynner had established himself at CBS directing Danger (1950), Omnibus (1952) and Studio One in Hollywood (1948) as well as training new directors in the fledgling medium. He took a leave of absence to play the King and even after his success jokingly referred to acting as his part time job. He was good friends with Frank Sinatra , and was a frequent guest at Frank's Palm Springs estate. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II initial choice for their Broadway "King and I" musical's featured role King of Siam was Rex Harrison , a role that he had played in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), but Harrison was unavailable due to film work. Mary Martin suggested Yul Brynner to Rodgers and Hammerstein II for the role since he had appeared on Broadway with her in the stage-musical "Lute Song". Rogers and Hammerstein II settled on television director and actor Yul Brynner.

In rehearsals, at Yul Brynner's first meeting with costume designer Irene Sharaff, Yul Brynner had only a fringe of curly hair. Yul Brynner asked Sharaff what he was to do about it. When Sharaff told him to shave it, Brynner was horror-struck, refused, convinced he would look terrible. During out of town tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut (February 27, 1951), Sharaff told Rodgers and Hammerstein II and the director John Van Druten, "Brynner should be bald!" Ordered to shave his head, Brynner gave in, shaving off his long curly black hair, putting dark stage make-up on his shaved head. The effect was so well received that it became Brynner's trademark. Brynner came to dominate his role and the musical, starring in a four-year national tour culminating in his last performance, a special Sunday night show, on June 30, 1985, in honor of Yul Brynner and his 4,625th performance of the role. "King of the mountain as well as the show".

Brynner died less than four months later, on October 10, 1985. He was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of the superhero Green Lantern/Abin Sur (created in 1959). Brynner was 39 years old at the time. Sur is well-known like the predecessor of Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, who replaced him after his death when Sur crashed with his ship on planet Earth. He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960. He actively sought the role of Grigori Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). However, Tom Baker was cast. Is one of 13 actors who have received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a real-life king. The others in chronological order are Charles Laughton for The Private Life of Henry VIII.

(1933), Robert Morley for Marie Antoinette (1938), Basil Rathbone for If I Were King (1938), Laurence Olivier for Henry V (1944) and Richard III (1955), José Ferrer for Joan of Arc (1948), John Gielgud for Becket (1964), Peter O'Toole for Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Robert Shaw for A Man for All Seasons (1966), Richard Burton for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Kenneth Branagh for Henry V (1989), Nigel Hawthorne for The Madness of King George (1994), and Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010). Since he started his career in France, he fluently spoke an almost perfect french.. In "Taras Bulba" (1962), Yul Brynner wanted the film to capture the essence of Gogol's novel.

By the time it reached the screen, it was dismissed as just another routine action picture in Cossack clothing --- the very thing he had hoped to avoid. According to Brynner's son Rock, his father's disappointment was so great that he never again invested much, if any, of himself in his remaining screen work. Personal Quotes (7) People don't know my real self, and they're not about to find out. [to interviewers] Just call me a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy. Girls have an unfair advantage over boys: If they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb. [Message recorded in January 1985, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer] Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke, whatever you do, just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. I'm convinced of that. I'm not of the can-kicking, shovel-carrying, ear-scratching, torn T-shirt school of acting. There are very few real men in the movies these days. Yet being a real man is the most important quality an actor can offer on the screen.

[on his character Chris Adams from The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966)] Well... He's just a dirty bum. There are only two things clean about him: His gun and his soul. [His Academy Award for Best Actor acceptance speech, 1957] I hope this is not a mistake, because I won't give it back for anything in the world. Thank you very much. Salary (3) Yul Brynner | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie twitter Biography by Hal Erickson During his lifetime, it was hard to determine when and where actor Yul Brynner was born, simply because he changed the story in every interview; confronted with these discrepancies late in life, he replied, "Ordinary mortals need but one birthday." At any rate, it appears that Brynner 's mother was part Russian, his father part Swiss, and that he lived in Russia until his mother moved the family to Manchuria and then Paris in the early '30s. He worked as a trapeze artist with the touring Cirque D'Hiver, then joined a repertory theater company in Paris in 1934.

Brynner 's fluency in Russian and French enabled him to build up a following with the Czarist expatriates in Paris, and his talents as a singer/guitarist increased his popularity. And when Michael Chekhov hired Brynner for his American theater company, he added a third language -- English -- to his repertoire. After several years of regional acting, Brynner was hired by the Office of War Information as an announcer for their French radio service. In 1945, Brynner was cast as Tsai-Yong in the musical play Lute Song, which starred Mary Martin ; the production opened on Broadway in 1946, and, though its run was short, Brynner won the Most Promising Actor Donaldson award. He went on to do theater in London and direct early live television programs in the States, including a children's puppet show, Life With Snarky Parker. In 1949, the actor made his movie debut as a two-bit smuggler in a Manhattan-filmed quickie Port of New York , which has taken on a video-store life of its own since lapsing into the public domain.

On the strength of his Lute Song work of several years earlier, Brynner was cast as the King of Siam in Rodgers and Hammerstein 's 1951 musical The King and I. The play was supposed to be a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence , with the king an important but secondary role; but so powerful was Brynner 's work that the role was beefed up in rehearsal, causing supporting actor Murvyn Vye to quit the show when Vye 's only song was cut to give more stage time to Brynner . The King and I was an enormous hit, supplying Brynner with the role of a lifetime, one in which he would repeat brilliantly in the 1956 film version -- and win an Oscar in the process. Cecil B. DeMille , impressed by Brynner 's King performance, cast the actor as the Egyptian Pharoah Rameses I in DeMille 's multimillion-dollar blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956).

It became difficult for Brynner to play a "normal" character after this, so he seldom tried, although he came close to subtle believability in Anastasia (1956) and The Journey (1959). The first baldheaded movie idol, Brynner occasionally donned a wig or, as in Taras Bulba (1962), a Russian pigtail, but his fans (particularly the ladies) preferred him "scalped," as it were. Outside of his film work, Brynner was also an accomplished photographer, and many of his pictures appeared in major magazine spreads or were used as official studio production stills. Hollywood changed radically in the '70s, and the sort of larger-than-life fare in which Brynner thrived thinned out; so, in 1972, the actor agreed to re-create his King and I role in an expensive weekly TV series, Anna and the King . But it lasted all of eight weeks.

Brynner 's last major film role was in the sci-fi thriller Westworld (1973) as a murderously malfunctioning robot, dressed in Western garb reminiscent of the actor's wardrobe in 1960's The Magnificent Seven . What could have been campy or ludicrous became a chilling characterization in Brynner 's hands; his steady, steely-eyed automaton glare as he approached his human victims was one of the more enjoyably frightening filmgoing benefits of the decade. In 1977, Brynner embarked upon a stage revival of The King and I, and though he was dogged by tales of his outrageous temperament and seemingly petty demands during the tour, audiences in New York and all over the country loved the show. The actor inaugurated a second King tour in 1985; this time, however, he knew he was dying of lung cancer, but kept the news from both his fans and co-workers. Unable to perform the "Shall We Dance" waltz or get all the words out for the song "A Puzzlement," Brynner nonetheless played to packed audiences willing to shell out 75 dollars per ticket.

Two months after the play closed in 1985, Brynner died in a New York hospital -- still insisting that his public not know the severity of his condition until after his death, although he had recorded a dramatic public-service announcement to be broadcast afterward that blamed the illness on smoking. Movie Highlights See Full Filmography Factsheet When interviewed, gave differing information about his life, including that he was born Taidje Khan on Sakhalin Island to a Mongol father and a Gypsy mother. His grandfather Julius Bryner was a Swiss immigrant who was a "founder" of the city of Vladivostok. Was once a trapeze artist with the French circus Cirque d'Hiver. Played his most famous role, the King of Siam in The King and I, in over 4,000 stage performances. One of few people to win an Oscar and a Tony for the same role. Was a talented photographer whose work was used in major magazines and as official studio production stills. Died the same day as Orson Welles. Appeared in a posthumously released public-service announcement in which he linked his fatal lung cancer to his smoking habit.

The Russian connection in the West’s ‘discovery’ of Thailand | Russia Beyond The Headlines The Russian connection in the West’s ‘discovery’ of Thailand June 20, 2015 Ajay Kamalakaran , RBTH The King and I, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical based on the experiences of an English governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam, starred Yul Brynner, who was born in Vladivostok and spent the early part of his life in the Russian Far East and Harbin. Facebook movies , vladivostok , thailand Yul Brynner in The King and I (1956). Source: Tumblr.com King Mongkut of Siam (Rama IV) is known as the “father of science and technology” in Thailand, since he chose to embrace Western scientific innovations and slowly opened up the country to the outside world in the 19th century. The experiences of Anglo-Indian educator Anna Leonowens as the governess to the children of King Rama IV were first penned down in a novel by Margaret Landon and then adapted into a musical and film by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

The man who played the lead role in the musical and film and become the face of Thailand in the West was Yul Brynner, a Russian-born actor. Yuliy Borisovich Brynner, who played the role of King Rama IV a total of 4625 times on stage, was born in 1920 in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. In ‘Yul: The Man who would be King: a Memoir of Father and Son,’ Rock Brynner wrote that his father exaggerated his background claiming he was born in Sakhalin as Taijde Khan. Some residents of Sakhalin still believe that the Hollywood actor was born on the island, but his actual birthplace is now a famous tourist attraction in Vladivostok. Brynner was born into one of the richest families in the Russian Far East. His grandfather, Julius was a Swiss citizen who moved to the Russian Far East in the 19th century and had a business empire that stretched to the Korean peninsula. Historical records indicate that the Romanov Dynasty’s quest to protect the Brynner family’s business interests was among the factors responsible for the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

According to Rock Brynner’s book, Yul moved with his sister and mother to Harbin in the 1920s and later to Paris, where he tried a variety of jobs from being a guitar player to a member of a circus troupe. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1940 and got his first major break in 1951, when he was chosen to play the role of King Rama IV for the Rodgers and Hammerstein play, the King and I. Brynner won the Tony Award for the Best Featured Actor, but his greatest achievement came in 1956 when he won the Oscar Award for the Best Actor in the film adaptation of the musical. Thai sensitivities While the film and the play were the only glimpses into Thai history that many in the West had in the 1950s, The King and I was banned in Thailand over what authorities in the kingdom called historical inaccuracies. “The king was much more sophisticated than the film showed him,” says Thunjira Samprasong, a historian based in Chiang Mai. “It’s not just that the film shows him eating with chopsticks and not with a spoon,” she says.

“There is also a dispute about how close the King was to the governess.” Others in Thailand were not happy about an ethnic European acting as one of the greatest kings of the Chakri Dynasty, Samprasong adds. “Of course, we know that Brynner did have some Mongolian blood and could have passed off as someone with mild Asian features,” she says. A more recent depiction of King Rama IV and Anna Leonowens that starred Chow Yun-Fat and Jodie Foster was also banned in Thailand. A 1930 censorship law in the kingdom prohibits film-makers from portraying the Thai monarchy in a disrespectful way. Those violating the law could even face a 7-year prison sentence. Samprasong argues with Thais who feel offended by Brynner’s performance as the king. “The film shows the grandeur of the royal palace and Brynner did a better job as acting as a Thai monarch than many Westerners who acted as Asians in old Hollywood movies,” she says. The historian adds that there are many fascinated tourists who still choose to visit Thailand after watching the classic. Thailand’s Queen Sikrit met Brynner in New York in March 1985 and saw the film that was banned in her country.

“There was nothing to indicate that Her Majesty found the film offensive,” Samprasong says. Brynner, who was also famous for playing Rameses II in The Ten Commandments, passed away in October 1985 and was buried in a Russian Orthodox Monastery in France. For a generation of Americans, the Russian actor was the face of a country that was viewed as one of the mysterious places in the Orient. Yul Brynner: A Photographic Journey Yul Brynner: A Photographic Journey Sizzle Reel On July 11, 1920, Yul Brynner was born Yuli Borisovich Bryner in the turbulent and revolutionary climate of Vladivostok, Russia. His father, Boris Bryner, was a mining engineer and his mother, Marousia Blagovidova, who came from the intelligentsia, was an actress and singer. Yul grew up with a variety of languages swirling around the household including Russian, English, French, Chinese, Korean, Czech and Japanese. When he was 6 years old, the family moved to Harbin, China, where he and his sister, Vera, attended a school run by the YMCA.

Yul’s parents divorced in 1934, and with an increasingly chaotic military environment, Brynner’s mother decided to move with the children to Paris. At this time in the late nineteenth century, Paris was the undisputed Mecca of the European arts, and the children were enrolled at Lycée Moncelle, one of the city’s top schools. During this time, Yul focused on his skills as a guitar player. At age 16, Yul dropped out of school to become a musician. He began playing guitar with a group of gypsies amidst the decadent backdrop of Russian nightclubs in Paris decorated with rich velvet and gilded candelabras. It was in this creative environment, among these amazing artists, that Yul met luminaries such as Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso. After this period, Brynner moved on and worked as a trapeze artist with the famed Cirque d'Hiver company and soon became an apprentice at the Théâtre des Mathurins in Paris. At age 20, after a brief three-month stay in England, Yul traveled with his mother to the United States to continue his studies with Michael Chekhov.

Yul lived in New York City and began to tour with Chekhov’s theatrical troupe. Chekhov cast Yul in a series of Shakespeare plays where he honed his acting skills. It did not take long for Brynner to be cast in his first Broadway role in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1941) and then Lute Song (1945), starring opposite famed actress Mary Martin. After these notable appearances on Broadway, Brynner struggled to find acting work and fell in to the burgeoning world of television. In 1950, Yul held a steady job as a staff producer and director at CBS, working alongside Sidney Lumet and his assistant, John Frankenheimer. It was at this time that Yul developed his life long passion for photography. Yul continued to pursue his acting career and, in 1951, he landed the defining role of his career as the King of Siam in the original stage production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, The King and I. Brynner won a Tony Award for his role, which he performed on stage over 5,000 times over the span of his career.

He went on to star in and co-direct the film version of The King and I, and was intimately involved in virtually every aspect of the production. At thirty-six years old, Yul won a Tony Award for his performance in The King and I, as well as an Academy Award for Best Actor in the film adaption. Yul went on to star in a multitude of highly-acclaimed films including The Ten Commandments (1956) with Charlton Heston, Anastasia (1956), co-starring Ingrid Bergman, The Brothers Karamazov (1958) with William Shatner, The Magnificent Seven (1960) with Steve McQueen, Morituri (1965) co-starring Marlon Brando, and The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) with Katharine Hepburn. Among his final feature roles, Brynner appeared in Michael Crichton's Westworld (1973) and its sequel, Futureworld (1976).

Yul also appeared in drag, as a torch singer, in an unbilled role opposite Roman Polanski in the Peter Sellers comedy, The Magic Christian (1969). In 1959, Yul was extremely moved by a visit to a refugee camp. This experience prompted him to immediately accept an offer to serve as special consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. During his tenure, Brynner toured several refugee camps in Europe, the Middle and Far East, documenting his experiences. Yul married four times and had four children. His first marriage was to actress Virginia Gilmore (1944-1960), they had one child, Yul Brynner II, born in 1946, and nicknamed “Rock”. Rock is now a historian, novelist, and professor at Connecticut State University. In 2006, Rock wrote non-fiction book about his father and family history, entitled, Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond.

Yul’s second wife, Doris Kleiner (1960-1967), a great Chilean beauty and socialite, married Yul on the set of The Magnificent Seven (1960). Together, they had one child, Victoria Brynner, in 1962. Victoria owns a production company called Stardust Visions with offices in Los Angeles and New York. Brynner’s third wife was Jacqueline Thion de la Chaume (1971-1981). Together they adopted two Vietnamese children, Mia Brynner-Campbell (1974), a high school English teacher and single mother of two beautiful children living in West Palm Beach, Florida and Melody Brynner (1975), a print producer in New York City. In 1983, he married fourth wife, Kathy Lee, a 24-year-old ballerina from Malaysia, and remained married until his death. On October 10th 1985, Yul Brynner died after a long battle with lung cancer. Nine months prior to his death, Yul gave an interview on Good Morning America expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial.

After his death, the American Cancer Society turned a clip of this interview into an anti-smoking public service announcement, which was one of the most highly recognized and acclaimed PSAs ever made, resonating with millions across the country. © 2010 Backstage Visions Yul Brynner Statue - Rock Brynner in the Russian Far East Rock Brynner in the Russian Far East Moscow Yul Brynner Park was opened on September 28th, 2012, when his statue was inaugurated in front of the house where he was born at 15 Aleutskaya St. in Vladivostok, Russia, in the garden where he played as a child. This project took six years of planning and preparation before the granite for the ten-foot statue was transported to Vladivostok from a quarry in China a thousand miles away; appropriate, since Yul spent much of his childhood in China after his family fled Soviet Russia. Sculptor Alexei Bokiy, with whom I had begun discussing the monument in 2006, understood well the enormous challenge confronting him in carving such a very famous face and figure out of a single block of stone.

The City of Vladivostok that now owns the land in front of "Dom Bryner" contributed the grounds for the park, and financed the landscaping and architectural design. At night, along with the glow of the 1920s street lights, the statue is illuminated by spotlights as Yul Brynner himself was throughout his long career. VLADIVOSTOK AND MOSCOW, 2016 The Russian edition of my book "Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia" was published in 2016. Setting out on the book tour. Book signing at the Far East Federal University. My book tour in May began in Vladivostok, Sidimi, and Dalnegorsk in Primorye. . . . . . with a formal event at the historic Vladivostok train station, last stop of the Trans-Siberian Express. The Patriarch honored and blessed the event with an Orthodox choir.

The Vladivostok International Film Festival "Pacific Meridian," 12-19 September 2015 This perspective of Vladivostok helps explain its unusual topography, from the large Amur Bay to the right and the inlet called the Golden Horn on the left, around which sits the heart of the city. The unique topography of the city is easier to understand from the view in Google Earth. I had the pleasure of meeting the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, who was visiting Vladivostok while I was there. He especially wanted to see the statue of my father in front of the Bryner residence, where Yul was born in 1920. Anbassador Tefft was determined to photograph me with the statue for his wife, a longtime fan. I'm the only person from outside Russia who has attended every Vladivostok film festival since the first in 2003. By now I lope up the blue carpet. Apparently, my dance moves were newsworthy. With actress Thuy Anh, from Hanoi, and film-maker Vanessa Danielson, who was presenting a brilliant short film, "Guests," directed by her husband.

My job, as the official talisman for the Film Festival, includes welcoming the guests. It's hard work, but somebody has to do it. This year the luminous British actress Julia Ormond attended our Festival. The admirable and delightful Julia Ormond has made many films in Russia but never visited Vladivostok before. At the Gala night of the Festival I took a selfie from the stage of the Vladivostok Opera House. Julia Ormond is in the front row left. Amur Bay from my hotel window. The boardwalk in Vladivostok on a warm, autumn Sunday afternoon. I was guest of honor at a conference at the Far Eastern Federal University, at the very conference table where Russian President Putin and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Asian-Pacific Economic Conference in 2012. The Far East Federal University, with 20,000 students, is the only academic institution I know with its own bottled water. An officer of the Russian merchant navy. Local artist Roman Goloseev painted this beautiful canvass for me, with many of my favorite images of Vladivostok.

Standing on the Sidimi peninsula across Amur Bay from Vladivostok, where the Bryner country estate was. In the background is one of the lighthouses that Jules Bryner built in the 1890s. With my "Russian brother" Sasha Doluda, who first invited me to Vladivostok in 2003. The date "1915" over our heads is on a structure at the estate where my father Yul first went swimming, a decade later. MOSCOW, 21-27 SEPTEMBER 2015 Thanks to my friend Zhenya Diamantidi, the Swiss Ambassador to Russia, Pierre Helg, offered me the guest house in the courtyard at the Ambassador's official residence in Maliy Kislovskiy Pereulok during my week in Moscow. This was the family home of Turgenev, where the novelist spent his childhood. My Swiss chalet in the center of Moscow, three hundred meters from the Arbat. It's a beautiful two-bedroom house with a pleasant office space and full kitchen. As well, the Ambassador gave a dinner party on my behalf at his official residence.

Ambassador Helg is a highly cultured gentleman from Geneva, where I grew up. My date for the dinner was my dear friend Liza Arzamasova, of course. Also at the ambassador's dinner party was James Land, the Cultural Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, the Swiss Cultural Attache, my dear friend from Vladivostok Zhenya Diamantidi, my friend and translator (two books so far) Max Nemtsov, and his wife, poet and book store entrpreneur Shashi Martynova. Nastya Smetanina joined us after I saw Liza's performance in the German play "Kamen." Nastya and Alexei invited me to their dacha for a few days, 90 km. northeast of Moscow. My dacha family. . . . Sunset with Nastya at the dacha. Victory Day in Dalnegorsk, 9 May 2015 The city of Dalnegorsk Dalnegorsk (pop. 42,000) was founded with the Bryner Mines in 1896 by my Swiss-born great-grandfather Jules Bryner.

Jules was one of a half-dozen Europeans who built the city of Vladivostok (pop. 500,000), but he built Dalnegorsk with his own capital and that of his mine's investors. Today, a towering, 12-foot-high statue of him stands in the city center. I was invited by the city and the company that now owns the mines, Dalpolymetall, to come celebrate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day. Indeed, at least one out of eight Russian bullets fired at nazi troops came from these mines. And so I found myself as the honored guest, in a proud spot on the review stand where the town's 37 surviving W.W.II veterans and scores of war widows sat to witness the parade in their honor, and to receive the flowers that the children of the city brought to them. I watched the Victory Day parade from the review stand with the Mayor, Gleb Zuev and the W.W.II veterans. Beneath the statue of Lenin, and behind the veterans and widows.

Aleksander Doluda, his wife Natasha, and their daughters Dina and Sasha - my "Russian family." This was planned as a family trip, and so it was. We flew on this small plane to Kavalierovo, an hour's drive from Dalnegorsk. We stayed with wood artist Oleg Batukhtin and his wife in Kavalierovo, in the beautiful house that he built himself. Laying flowers at my great-grandfather's monument. The statue is an extraordinary tribute to Jules Bryner. The plaque upon the pedestal reads "Jules Ivanovich Bryner (1849-1920), founder of Dalnegorsk and of the Joint Stock Mining Company 'Tetukhe.'" The city's historian, Victor Tatarnikov, preesented me with a beautiful miniature of the statue, made of the same stone and bronze by the sculptor, my friend Alexey Bokiy, and made possible by Gleb Zuev. My visit to the Jules Bryner monument was as significant to the city as it was to me. I paid tribute to Russia's war heroes with Mayor Igor Sakhuta and with a veteran of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The Mayor and I left flowers at the statue to the heroes of World War II. The parade began with a long wreath carried by youthful escorts. Almost everyone in Dalnegorsk marched, in a variety of World War II uniforms. Hundreds of dove balloons were freed along the parade route. I spent time with a number of the World War II widows of Dalnegorsk. Victory Day ended with fireworks over Town Hall. Gleb Zuev and I beside Lake Bryner, beneath the lighthouse. Sasha Doluda, my Russian "brother" who made this and all my visits possible, beneath Cape Bryner. Off the coast from the lighthouse that my great-grandfather built there more than a century ago. Here, on Gleb'a speed boat I found myself between Cape Bryner and the Twin Rocks. Cape Bryner and the Twin Rocks were on the 1,000-Ruble notes that were printed in 1991, when the Soviet Union ended and Russia was born anew. Before leaving Vladivostok for Moscow, I lay flowers at my father's statue. A neighbor photographed me and my friends from his apartment. As always, I visited Gorky (Kultura) Park. . .

. . . and this time with my young old friend Liza Arzamasova. . . . and had lunch beside the badminton courts. We strolled through the art-filled paths . . . . . . and walked along the Moskva River. Liza brought me to Mikhail Bulgakov's home and museum on his 124th birthday. I had seen Sergey Aldonin's production of Master and Margarita there two years ago. in the beautiful little basement theatre just below when Bulgakov wrote it decades ago. Thanks to Liza, I feel very much part of the devoted family that keep the great author's memory alive. Liza and I were greeted by the headless author. The headless author at work. Bulgakov's typewriter. Time to leave Russia . . . until September. Yul Brynner Tribute at The Solzhenitsyn House of Russians Abroad, Moscow, November 7-8, 2014 Yul Brynner, The Russian King of Hollywood Exhibit at the Solzhenitsyn Center.

I was proud to be able to help the Solzhenitsyn Center celebrate Yul's achievements, and to accept the Michael Chekhov Medal on his behalf. Dr. Viktor Moskvin, the Director of the Solzhentsyn Center, presented the Medal and Certificate . . . . . . along with Sergey Zaitsev, renowned documentary film-maker and the head of the Film Festival, and the members of the Chekhov Committee. The Magnificent Seven will forever remain Yul's best loved film in Russia. Alexander Solzhenitsyn created the Center to honor the work of Russians who, like himself, were forced to leave their homeland during the Soviet era. This year they honored my father - three times. The "Russians Abroad Film Festival" honored Yul with the Michael Chekhov Award -- especially fitting, since it was with Chekhov that he studied for three years and emigrated to the United States. And the Solzhenitsyn Center honored him with a documentary, beautifully filmed by Rita Kuklina, entitled "Yul - Gypsy Soul," which was shown both nights, and will soon be broadcast on the national channel, Kultura.

Finally, a two-room exhibit of Yul Brynner and our family's memorabilia was opened, from the collection of Elena Sergeyeva. It will remain at the Center until the end of November. Nataliya Klevalina, in charge of International Projects at the Center, whose year's work and preparation made the event possible. I appeared on Kultura kanal . . . . . . to announce the publication in Russian of my book Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond in 2016, as well as Rita Kuklina's documentary, Yul - Gypsy Soul. Filmmaker Rita Kuklina and I answering questions about her documentary. Part of the extensive collection of documents, photos, and memoribilia. . . . . .including Chekhov's 1954 book for which he asked Yul to write the Preface. I had time to visit the Arbat with my beloved friend Liza Arzamasova. . . . . . and to drive past the Kremlin in the frosty climate of November 2014.

Inauguration of Jules Bryner Statue in Dalnegorsk, Russia September 27th, 2014. The whole city turned out in tribute to Jules Bryner, warmly remembered as the single-handed founder of Dalnegorsk. The cast bronze sculpture is by Alexei Bokiy, who also carved the granite statue of Yul in Vladivostok, 400 miles to the southwest. Jules Bryner, my great-grandfather, established the Bryner Mines in the wilderness in 1897, and with them the town of Tetukhe, known today as Dalnegorsk. I had hoped to attend, but my brief visit to Vladivostok did not make that possible . . . . . . but I have accepted the invitation of Dalpolymetall, the company that now owns my family's mines, to visit next spring, and I look forward to it with great anticipation. (My thanks to Alexander Borisenko and Sergey Kiryanov for use of all the photos.) This year the Festival was held at the new Vladivostok Opera House, which opened just three months ago. Arriving on the "blue carpet" . . . . . .

with my friend Michael Madsen, best known for his roles in Tarantino films. Michael attended the Festival last year as a guest and enjoyed it so much he returned this year as a competition juror. This year Adrien Brody also came to Vladivostok, where he is best known for his Oscar-winning role in The Pianist, and this year in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. He chose to present his earlier Anderson film, The Darjeeling Express. Adrien and Michael have known each other for years. Stephen Baldwin was also a guest at the Festival, best remembered in Vladivostok for The Usual Suspects. The St. Petersburg stage actress Anna Astrakhantseva attended, representing her new film Two Women, adapted from Turgeniev's A Month in the Country. Anna co-stars in the film with Ralph Fiennes, whose performance in effortless, impeccable Russian is one of the film's many pleasures. On the final night of the Festival I presented - as I do every year - the Yul Brynner Award for the Most Promising Young Actor or Actress, in the city where he was born.

Of course, this being 2014, the occasion called for the first onstage selfie at the Opera. For this year's Yul Brynner Award, I chose Anna Levonova, who co-stars with Anna Astrakhantseva and Ralph Fiennes in Two Women, opening worldwide later this year. Hockey legend Slava Fetisov is a beloved and admired national figure whom I've known for three years. A true gentleman, Slava played for his Moscow team for more than a decade, as well as on the national Soviet Union team. Then he became the first former Soviet player to join the NHL, and played for the New Jersey Devils before winning back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. Today Slava serves in the Duma (Parliament) representing Vladivostok and the region of Primorye. Lecture at the Far East Federal University, Sept. 16th, 2014 The Far Eastern Federal University is on Russky Island, where a few years ago only goats roamed. President Putin ordered the construction of the university to serve as the site for the Asian-Pacific Economic Conference, hosted by Russia for the first time in 2012.

Today the university can serve 50,000 students from across Russia and Asia, since it absorbed the three main universities in the city. Far Eastern Federal University with Vladivostok in the background. The lecture was "The Role of Jules Bryner in the Birth of Vladivostok and the History of Imperial Russia." Again, in 2014, it seemed a selfie was mandatory. At night, the university is impossibly beautiful. 2013 - The XIth Vladivostok International Film Festival The designated talisman of the event. Opening the Film Festival The transcendent Isabelle Huppert attended . . . Her brilliant new film, Tip Top, directed by Serge Bozon (La France), had its Asian and Russian premiere at our Festival. Isabelle left early the next morning for the Paris premiere. I was introduced to her by my "Russian brother," Sasha Doluda, who first invited me to Vladivostok in 2003. It would be impossible to spend enough time with this great artist. . . . as did Michael Madsen . . . His career on the screen goes back thirty years. Most recently he has appeared in a number of films by Quentin Tarantino.

But it was especially wonderful to have with us the inestimable Pierre Richard. . . At the final Gala . . . . . . who told me that he only imagined becoming an actor after seeing a Danny Kaye film: an interesting comedic inspiration. He also explained that he saw Yul's posthumous anti-smoking declaration in 1986 and stopped smoking the next day -- for which he credits his good health and long life. With my friend Governor Miklushevsky of the Primorye region, of which Vladivostok is the capital. Presenting the XIth Yul Brynner Award Each year it falls to me to choose the winner and present the "Special Prize in the name of Yul Brynner" to the Most Promising Young Actor or Actress. Yul's boots from The Magnificent Seven My sister Victoria gave me these after she bought them at auction in Hollywood, and I wore them to the Gala. After Yul left Vladivostok for China at the age of seven, he had never again walked the streets of the city where he was born. . . . . . but now, as I noted onstage, at least his boots had!

This year the Yul Brynner Award went to. . . . . . Anfisa Chernich, for her role in the Russian film, The Geographer Who Drank The Whole Globe A young actress from Moscow, Anfisa gives a heartfelt performance that was passionately embraced by Festival audiences. The Festival's unpaid volunteers Year after year, it is only thanks to scores of these devoted, sleep-deprived university students that the Festival is able to exist at all. Across Aleutsakaya St. from Yul's statue My Master Class on Michael Chekhov and Constantin Stanislavsky at Gorky Library A peripheral event of the Festival, my lecture covered the important distinction betweeen Stanislavsky's "System" or "Method" based upon the recall of personal memories, and Chekhov's injunction that the actor must find the character and the emotions through the practiced use of imagination. I further emphasized that, until recently, Stanislavsky's greater renown owed primarily to his willingness to capitulate to any demands Stalin made upon him. By contrast, Michael Chekhov would not collaborate with Stalin's inhumanity, and had to flee his homeland in the 1930s.

In 1940, at the age of twenty, Yul first came to the United States to live and study with him. Michael Madsen chatting with Consul General Holm-Olsen and myself. YUL BRYNNER DAY IN VLADIVOSTOK, JULY 2013 The Brynner commemorative silver coin On July 11th, 2013, Yul Brynner's signature role in The King and I came to life in Yul Brynner Park, beside his granite statue . . . . . . in front of the Art Nouveau home where he was born ninety-three years ago. Each year on his birthday one of his films will be presented in Yul Brynner Park. This new tradition is sponsored by the city of Vladivostok and the Arsenyev State Museum. The King and I is not well known in Russia, where Yul is most revered for The Magnificent Seven, the most popular foreign film of all time.

Rockenteur in the Arbat The House of Actors in the Arbat Moscow's friendliest street, the Arbat, is a five-hundred-year-old passage, closed to traffic, where Pushkin and generations of independent artists have thrived. It is also where Russian theatre and film actors have gathered at the Actor's House for the past eighty years. is where I was invited to perform Rockenteur: A Comedy of Cultural History filmed before a live audience . . . . . . including Anastasia Smetanina and Liza Arzamasova, past winners of the Yul Brynner Award at the Vladivostok International Film Festival. May Day parade at the Kremlin, 2013 Vladivostok Spring Lecture Series, 2013 Far East Federal University My thanks to Governor Miklushevsky, Professor Kusnetzov, Rector Ivanets, and interpreter Ivan Pisarev, who made this lecture tour possible.

A bouillabaisse of topics: "Mikhail Chekhov, Konstantin Stanislavsky, and the Worldwide Revolution in the Art of Acting, 1900-1960." "Global Problems Demand Global Solutions: Terrorism, Climate Change, World Hunger, and Sustainability." "The Social and Political Impact of Rock 'n' Roll in the U.S. and Soviet Russia, 1960-1990." "The Development of the American Language from Britain's English and the Birth of the American Character." "Strengths and Weaknesses of the U.S. Constitution." "Jules Bryner's Yalu River Timber Contract and The Russo-Japanese War." "Global Problems Demand Global Solutions" Political Science Students -- International Relations "The Birth of The American Language" Yul Brynner Statue and Park in Vladivostok, Russia Yul Brynner Park and Statue Yul, age 3, playing with his nanny (in wolf mask) and cousin Irena beside the Bryner house, 1923. Yul Brynner was born on July 11th, 1920 in the terraced room above the statue.

People from across the city came for the Inaugural Ceremony in a festive atmosphere with a brass band, balloons, children playing in the park, dignitaries of Vladivostok and Primorye, and the very gracious United States Consul General Sylvia Curran. The statue is a perfect likeness from every angle. Dom Bryner (red arrow) on Tiger Hill presides over the heart of Vladivostok. The inauguration of the statue was a day for flowers . . . . . . families and children. The sculptor Alexei Bokiy, who carved the granite statue From across Aleutskaya Street This view of the statue will greet every visitor arriving from Moscow on the Trans-Siberian -- the longest railroad in the world -- on their way to the city center. The house built by my great-grandfather is just a block from the railway station where Jules Bryner helped Tsar Nicholas II lay the corner-stone in 1891. The wall above the street is currently being re-faced in granite. The announcement of the Inauguration featured a photo from The Magnificent Seven, which is still today the all-time most popular foreign film in Russia.

But though The King and I has been seen by far fewer Russians, everyone who helped create this monument knew that Yul spent an unequalled fourteen years of his life in the theatre performing this role, for which he also won the Oscar. The Mayor and I removed the Inaugural Ribbon . . . Vladivostok Mayor Igor Pushkariov gave indispensable help to make the park and the statue possible. . . . revealing the Russian inscription in gold: "Yul Brynner - King of Theatre and Film" Thanking the hundreds of people who worked on this tribute. The Yul Brynner Park grew out of the love and pride that this city of 600,000 feels toward its most renowned son. Even today, Yul Brynner remains the only Russian-born actor to win the Academy Award, for the title role in "The King and I," which he also played on stage for fourteen years of his life. His last performance on Broadway as the King came thirty-four years after his first. He continued playing eight shows a week until four months before his death from lung cancer in 1985.

THOSE WHO MADE THIS STATUE AND PARK POSSIBLE Left to right: Sergei Stepanchenko, Moscow actor and head of the Vladivostok International Film Festival; Alexei Bokii, sculptor of the statue; Alexander Doluda, Rock's "Russian brother," who worked for years to bring Yul Brynner Park into existence; Igor Pushkarev, mayor of Vladivostok; Rock Brynner; Sergei Bogdan, Chairman of Primorye Bank; U.S. Consul General Sylvia Curran, who has done everything possible to support the Brynner legacy; and Anatolii Melnik, Chief Architect of the city of Vladivostok. Liza Minnelli and Rock in Vladivostok, 2011 Liza May arrives in the Russian Far East. . . . . . after we flew from New York to Seoul and (skirting North Korea) landed in Vladivostok, the last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, six thousand miles from Moscow. Liza Arzamasova, Rock Brynner, Liza Minnelli arrriving at. . . . . .the Opening of the Ninth Vladivostok International Film Festival.

Our young friend Liza Arzamasova is currently starring in Romeo and Juliette at the Stanislavsky State Theatre in Moscow. Liza May waving to the crowd. . . "Priviet, Vladivostok!" . . ."Maybe This Time" and "New York, New York," all written for her by Kander and Ebb. She earned a full-throated, Russian ovation. I gave her a kiss onstage. . . . . .as my father Yul had kissed her mother Judy exactly sixty years earlier, when they both won Tony Awards on Broadway. With that, Liza began a long evening of shirt-signing, first for Sergei Stepanchenko. . . . . . as our host, Governor Darkin, watched in amusement. For more on the Brynners in Russia, copies of Empire and Odyssey can be ordered at Amazon.com. Publishers Weekly - Starred Review: A four-generation family saga�featuring one of the world�s sexiest movie stars�would usually signal a fluffy beach read, but the story of the Brynner patriarchs is too historically complex and fascinating to fall into that genre.

Great-grandson Rock Brynner opens by introducing Swiss-born Jules, who started in the import-export business out of Shanghai and then Yokohama, before establishing himself in Vladivostok in the 1870s. Jules took advantage of the city�s Wild West character and the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to expand from shipping into mining and forestry, and created an extraordinary commercial empire. It was Jules�s son Boris who had to negotiate the socialization of the family businesses in the newly created Soviet Union. Boris�s �migr� son Yul learned show business in France before turning his much-touted Genghis Khan genes�and his Russian method acting�into American box office gold. Yul�s American son Rock concludes the volume with his own adventures in the counterculture before becoming an academic. The odyssey comes full circle in 2003 when the city of Vladivostok invites Rock to come and celebrate as a native son. An enthralling family chronicle, the Brynner perspective on Far East Russian history should be important for Pacific Rim historians as well. 165 Photos.

Library Journal: Brynner can truly be described as a Renaissance man accomplished in many fields, from street clown and actor to band manager, pilot, historian, professor, and writer. In this personal yet meticulous work, he chronicles the lives of four generations of his own family, beginning with his great-grandfather, Jules Bryner, a Swiss who eventually settled in Vladivostok, where he was greatly responsible for establishing its importance in the Russian Far East. Next, he covers Jules�s son Boris, a major industrialist, and then Boris�s son, the author�s father, actor Yul Brynner. He concludes, full circle, with his own odyssey to Vladivostok in 2003. Brynner expertly paints each era in the context of the family history, showing how each man made his own mark upon his generation, whether through direct involvement in the Russo-Japanese War or as an exemplar of Hollywood glamour. Brynner refers to many well-known celebrities, and he isn�t shy about revealing previously unknown stories involving Sammy Davis Jr., Marlene Dietrich, and Sam Giancana.

Illustrated with over 150 photographs, this book can stand by itself as a fascinating tale of a fascinating family. "The enthralling story, across four generations, of a singular dynasty of fathers and sons, all of them gifted, dynamic, complicated and driven, all of them firmly embedded in the history of their times. . . . They include the restless, brilliant, and ambitious Yul Brynner, whose odyssey from the Russian Far East to Paris, New York and Hollywood is chronicled with the flair of a born raconteur, the professional historian�s command of facts, and the memoirist�s firsthand knowledge of intimate family lore. His son, Rock Brynner, brings this dazzling saga full circle with his adoption by the people of Vladivostok." � Elizabeth Frank, novelist and Pulitzer-prize winning biographer "Empire and Odyssey is the Forsyte Saga of the Russian diaspora, an absorbing story of an extraordinary family adapting to changing times, of ambition, talent, egotism, loyalty, estrangement, and betrayal, set against a tumultuous background of imperial expansion, war, revolution, exile, and homecoming.

It captures the characters Jules, Boris, and Yul with candor, humor, and poignancy. Rock Brynner�s curiosity and sensibilities, cultivated no doubt over the course of personal triumphs and travails, have attuned him to lyrical, tragic, ironic, and comic melodies, so that he can feel � and convey � the burden of Russia�s past, of Russia�s tragedies." � Prof. John J. Stephan, author, The Russian Far East: A History "Yul Brynner was among the most powerful actors of all time. Rock Brynner is one of the most exhilarating story-tellers I have ever read." � James Earl Jones "Dr. Rock Brynner is a gentleman and a scholar, and during my championship years he was always a true friend and reliable bodyguard." � Muhammad Ali "Matoushka" by Aliosha Dimitrievitch (1.1MB) Vladivostok Station Last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway In 1891, Jules joined the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, in laying the cornerstone for this station.

The broad streets of the old city Built on a narrow peninsula, Vladivostok is surrounded by two bays. Vladivostok became home to 750,000 residents. The Bryner Residence The curved, Art Nouveau peak of the Bryner Residence was very daring when Jules had the house designed in 1910, and still looks modern today. Jules built it, Boris lived in it, and in 1920 Yul was born there. Eighty years after my family was forced to flee Stalin,I was welcomed there warmly. Now it is a city landmark. The Bryner Residence (red arrow) overlooks the main square and port of Vladivostok. Some years after leaving Vladivostok, Yul joined the circus in Paris as a trapeze acrobat. Broadway, 1951 How Yul made it by the age of thirty from his childhood in Vladivostok to stardom in The King and I is only one part of the family epic, Empire and Odyssey . . . 1957 Yul is the only Russian-born actor to have won the Academy Award.

With Queen Elizabeth II in 1979 Yul's last performance as King came 34 years after his first. Even authentic royalty was happy to welcome him in their ranks. 1984 This was at the opening of the New York Hard Rock Cafe in 1984, the year before my father died. Cape Bryner, four hundred miles from Vladivostok, where Jules built his first lighthouse above the port of the Bryner Mines . . . . . . and the Twin Rocks beneath Cape Bryner. . . . . . appeared on Russia's national currency - the thousand-ruble note - as soon as the Soviet era ended.

Yul on a tiger hunt in North Korea in 1937 In the 1930s, my father Yul, then 17, often hunted in North Korea with his father, Boris, and with Valery's father, Yuri Yankovsky, known since the late 1800s as "the greatest tiger hunter in the world." To see the Bryner Mines and country estate, Sidemy, click on the links at the top of this page, all about Russia: Bryner Mines, Sidemy, Bryners, Friends, Moscow. Our group. As guest of honor on Victory Day, I was given a special spot on the review stand behind the city's 37 surviving veterans, all in their 90s, and the scores of widows, beside the Mayor and Gleb Zuev, the Director of the (formerly) Bryner Mines, today Dalpolymetall. At the Victory Day parade, I was invited to the review stand with the Mayor, Gleb Zuev, and Dalnegorsk's 37 surviving veterans of W.W. II.

Question: In which Russian city was actor Yul Bryner born?
Answer: VLADIVOSTOCK