Yul Brynner Net Worth
Publish date: 2024-07-14
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| 1 | 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. |
| 2 | Since he started his career in France, he fluently spoke an almost perfect french.. |
| 3 | 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). |
| 4 | He actively sought the role of Grigori Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). However, Tom Baker was cast. |
| 5 | He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960. |
| 6 | 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. |
| 7 | 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. |
| 8 | He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, and was a frequent guest at Frank's Palm Springs estate. |
| 9 | 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. |
| 10 | 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). |
| 11 | 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. |
| 12 | Had played the role of King Mongkut of Siam on stage, in the movies and on a short-lived television series. |
| 13 | 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. |
| 14 | 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. |
| 15 | Daughter Victoria Brynner is a successful businesswoman who founded her own company Stardust Visions and Stardust Celebrities in Los Angeles (1992). |
| 16 | He badly wanted to play the title role in Spartacus (1960) and the role of Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). |
| 17 | Was very good friends with Deborah Kerr. |
| 18 | He was a great believer in rituals. |
| 19 | Always prepared breakfast while wearing a silk kimono. |
| 20 | Loved modern appliances. |
| 21 | Godfather of Charlotte Gainsbourg. |
| 22 | Audrey Hepburn is the godmother of his daughter Victoria. |
| 23 | According to his son, Yul "Rock" Brynner, "In his youth, Yul Brynner was Jean Cocteau's opium supplier." Empire and Odyssey, p. 141. |
| 24 | Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 111-114. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. |
| 25 | 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). |
| 26 | 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)). |
| 27 | Brynner married Doris Kleiner on the set during shooting of The Magnificent Seven (1960). |
| 28 | Apprentice of Michael Chekhov. |
| 29 | Had appeared in three different films with Eli Wallach: The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966) and Romansa konjokradice (1971). |
| 30 | He was the only actor to appear in both The Magnificent Seven (1960) and its first sequel, Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966). However, he did not appear in either of the other sequels, Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) and The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972). |
| 31 | 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'". |
| 32 | 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). |
| 33 | 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.) |
| 34 | Mentioned in the popular mid-1980s song "One Night in Bangkok", sung by Murray Head, from the soundtrack of the musical "Chess". |
| 35 | He was an accomplished photographer. He took many photos on the sets of the various projects he worked on over the years. |
| 36 | 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. |
| 37 | He died on the same day as his Bitka na Neretvi (1969) co-star Orson Welles: October 10, 1985. |
| 38 | 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. |
| 39 | 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. |
| 40 | 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. |
| 41 | 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). |
| 42 | Had one daughter with his second wife, Doris Kleiner: Victoria Brynner (born November 1962 in Switzerland). |
| 43 | Daughter Lark Brynner (born 1958) was born out of wedlock. She was raised by her mother, German actress Frances Martin. |
| 44 | Had one son with his first wife, actress Virginia Gilmore: Yul "Rock" Brynner II (born December 23, 1946). |
| 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. |
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