Yul Brynner: The fearless cowboy from Vladivostok (PHOTOS)
“Furious and stubborn,” is how Rock Brynner, the son of Hollywood star Yul Brynner, described his father.
Yul was born Yuliy Borisovich Briner in 1920 in Vladivostok to a family of Russified Swiss, the Briners. When he was four, his parents divorced: His father left with his new chosen one to Harbin, while his mother in 1928, too, decided to leave her homeland – through China to Paris.
Artistic since childhood, Yuliy was more interested in music than in school lessons. Acquaintance with Russian gypsies only spurred his passion: soon, he was performing gypsy songs in restaurants and cabarets and performing tricks under the domes of circuses. But, the passion did not last long and, soon, impressed by the fashionable Stanislavsky system, Briner decided to become an actor and left for the U.S. It was there that he changed his name and became Yul Brynner.
In 1951, he landed a role in the Broadway musical ‘The King and I’, which made him a real star. The image of King Mongkuta he created was so spectacular and effective that the script was rewritten, making his role the main one.
And, when they decided to transfer the production to the screen, there was no doubt about the choice of the actor. Brynner would go on to win an Oscar for the role.
His career included a variety of roles, such as Pharaoh Ramses II, Dmitry Karamazov, Taras Bulba and King Solomon. In 1960, he himself directed the western ‘The Magnificent Seven’ about how a group of cowboys protects the inhabitants of a Mexican village from bandits. He also played the main role, the gunslinger Chris, while Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson both shone on the screen with him.
On October 10, 1985, TV viewers saw the actor for the last time in a commercial for the American Cancer Society, in which he called on people to quit smoking. That was the day Yul Brynner passed away from lung cancer.
