Saturdays with the Stars: Yul Brynner

Each month of 2023 we are taking a look at a star who made their name in westerns, rustling cattle & riding horses during the brief time when cowboys ruled Hollywood.  Last month, we focused on the career of Randolph Scott, a stoic leading man who became the unlikely muse of a western maestro.  This month, we're going to focus on one of the most unlikely western stars imaginable, the son of upper class Russian parents who would through an unlikely chain of events, become the toast of Broadway, and eventually an Oscar winner, before spending much of the latter half of his career appearing in westerns.  This month's star is Yul Brynner.

The son of Russian businessmen, young Yul Brynner (born Yully Briner) was born into a great family fortune which was stripped as the Soviet government took over, and his parents lost much of their family fortune.  After his parents divorce, Brynner moved with his mother & sister to China, and then once again fleeing a war, ended up in Paris, where the young Brynner joined a French cabaret company, where he would sing & play his guitar.  A chance meeting with film director Jean Cocteau (allegedly while both he and Brynner, who suffered from drug addiction problems early in his life, were buying opium), introduced the young Brynner to the bohemian scene of Paris at the time, where he became friends with artists like Pablo Picasso & Salvador Dali.  He moved one more time with his mother to New York, where he made the acquaintance of Marlene Dietrich (with whom legend has it he had an affair despite a 19 year age gap between the two), and became an established television director.  

Brynner eventually was coaxed back into acting when the role of a lifetime came across his desk.  Rodgers & Hammerstein had written a musical treatment of Anna and the King of Siam, and he was cast in the titular role as King Mongkut, which would win him a Tony Award and in 1957, an Academy Award for Best Actor.  In 1956, he appeared in three mega-hits, not just The King & I, but also Anastasia and The Ten Commandments.  The combination of these three movies made the distinctive Brynner (one of the first bald leading men, despite the fact that he actually shaved his head rather than being totally bald) one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood.

Brynner's success was unusual, and relatively short-lived.  Despite a hit in 1958 (The Brothers Karamazov), Brynner would never again equal the success of his work in 1956.  He would, however, become an unusual (given his Russian ancestry and start in Hollywood playing a South Asian king) staple in westerns, including two franchises of the era, The Magnificent Seven and Westworld, both of which would spawn sequels, and in the latter's case, a TV series thirty years after Brynner's death.  This month, we're going to take a look at Brynner's work in these westerns, and talk more about this actor's extraordinary life.