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Video: Russian Hollywood star, friend of Michael Jackson and lover Marlene Dietrich: Truth and fiction in the fate of Yul Brynner
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
He called himself a gypsy, was friends with Jean Cocteau and Michael Jackson, was the lover of Marlene Dietrich, worked as a lifeguard on the beach and became famous all over the world. The fate of Hollywood star Yul Brynner is so rich in extraordinary twists that sometimes the fictional facts that he told for the fun of reporters are not as amazing as his real biography.
Vladivostok, Harbin, Paris
On July 11, 1920, when the Civil War was still going on in the Far East, a son named Julius was born in the family of businessman Boris Briner in Vladivostok. Shortly after the birth of Julia Briners moved to Chinese Harbin, where in the 1920s and 1930s. lived a large Russian diaspora. The Briners differed from other emigrants both by their unusual origin - Boris Briner was the son of a Russified Swiss, and wealth. Boris and his relatives owned a successful transport company, which made it possible to live not only comfortably, but even luxuriously.
However, you should not imagine Julia's childhood cloudless. When he was only 4 years old, his parents divorced and the boy grew up without a father. In 1934, his mother decides to move to Paris, and from that moment Julius actually begins to live his life. Studying in an elite lyceum did not attract an early matured teenager. Whether it is Parisian cabaret with their relaxed atmosphere! In one of the cabarets, Julius met the family of the famous gypsy dancers and performers Dimitrievich in those years. He fell in love with their songs so much that he took up a guitar himself, and subsequently more than once declared his gypsy origin, considering himself a gypsy, if not by blood, then by spirit.
Another passion of Julia was circus acrobatics. He even began performing in one of the circuses with the original number, but one day he fell off the trapeze and injured his back. Doctors did not find anything better than to prescribe morphine, and by the age of 17, Julius turned into a complete drug addict.
Cocteau's friend and movie star husband
Oddly enough, it was morphine that helped the young man enter the circle of the French creative elite. In one of the restaurants, the famous writer Jean Cocteau, having guessed in a handsome young man the same morphine addict as he was, asked Julia where he got the drugs. But it would be wrong to imagine the communication of these two outstanding people as a friendship of drug addicts: Cocteau and Briner were brought together by charisma, love of art and the joys of life. And Julius managed to get rid of drug addiction after undergoing a course of treatment.
The end of friendship with Cocteau was put by the approaching war. In 1939, Julius with his mother and sister returned to Harbin, and in 1941 they moved to the United States. By that time, Julius already knew that he wanted to be an actor. He enters the studio of Mikhail Chekhov and takes the first steps in his chosen profession, grabbing at the same time for any opportunity to earn extra money. In 1941, his name first appears on the theatrical poster, albeit in a slightly modified version - Yul Brynner, and in 1942 he meets the young movie star Virginia Gilmore.
A whirlwind romance quickly led to marriage: in 1943, Yul and Virginia were married. Moving from Hollywood to New York, Virginia began to perform with success on Broadway. Soon Yul himself made his debut in one of the musicals. His manhood, charm and pleasant voice made a strong impression, and therefore, when the theater decided to stage a new musical "The King and I", the role of the king was given to Brynner.
King of stage and screen
The role of the King of Siam, who conquered the heart of an English teacher, turned the aspiring actor into a true Broadway star, but no one knew that initially this character was given a secondary place in the play. Seeing Brynner's play, the authors of the play rewrote the text and made the image of the king a key one. Brynner's combination of bright personality and brilliant performance won the hearts of the audience, and the musical became extremely popular. 5 years after the premiere of the musical "The King and I", a film of the same name with Brynner in the title role was released, which finally consolidated his "star" status.
The 1950s can be safely called the "golden decade" in the life of an actor. He has an insane success with women - it was to this period that his novels with Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman belong, he starred in his best films, including The Magnificent Seven. Thanks to this film, Brynner was recognized in the USSR, and the boys from Brest to Vladivostok in their games imitated his hero - the impeccable cowboy Chris.
In the 1960s, Yul's film career began to decline somewhat, and in the early 1970s he returned to the theatrical stage. From 1977 to 1985, Brynner played 4633 times his favorite role in the updated musical "The King and I", each time leaving the stage to a flurry of applause. Among his fans were such different people as the Queen of Great Britain and Michael Jackson, with whom Yul became friends, and in Japan the actor became a national idol. Even lung cancer could not force Yula to leave the stage. The last time he entered the stage was 3 months before his death and played, as always, brilliantly.
Yul Brynner died on October 10, 1985. After his death, a video message from the actor was released on the screens, in which he admitted that his illness was the result of years of smoking, and urged viewers to give up the bad habit.
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