Yul Brynner obituary in “The Los Angeles Times”.
Yul Brynner can claim two iconic roles to his credit. He will forever be associated with the musical “The King and I” where he played King Mongkut of Siam. He first played the role on Broadway in the early 1950’s and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film in 1956. His other celluloid image is as Chris Larabee Adams in the hugely popular “The Magnificent Seven”. For trivia fans, can you name the other six actors who formed the magnificent seven without checking on the internet.
His obituary in “Los Angeles Times:
Yul Brynner, who with shaved head and regally haughty presence played and replayed the starring role in “The King and I” for more than 30 years, died early today in a New York Hospital. He was 65.
With him when he died at 1 a.m. at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center were his wife, Kathy Lee, and his four children, said Josh Ellis, the actor’s spokesman.
“He died of multiple complications that came as a result of what was originally cancer,” Ellis said. “He faced death with a dignity and strength that astounded his doctors. He fought like a lion.”
“He was a remarkable person,” Charlton Heston, who starred with Brynner in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 movie epic “The Ten Commandments,” told the Associated Press. “His work in ‘King and I’ was beyond compare. He was a very special talent. I’m very sorry to hear of his death.”
FOR THE RECORD – Yul Brynner: The obituary of actor Yul Brynner in the Oct. 10, 1985, Section A reported his birth date as July 11, 1917. According to public records, he was born July 11, 1920.
Though there were other Broadway and movie roles for Brynner, it is doubtful that any successful actor of his time had been so associated with a single character as was Brynner with the arrogant, bombastic King of Siam.
None of Brynner’s other parts were nearly as memorable as the king. If he became typecast, it was something Brynner didn’t seem to mind. For one thing, there were certain physical limitations that kept him from a wider variety of parts.
“I would have liked to play Henry Higgins (in ‘My Fair Lady’),” he told a Times interviewer a decade ago, “but I couldn’t because of my accent and looks. Unless I did it with an Outer Mongolian touring company.”
For another, the money from the play, the movie, and the seemingly countless touring companies of the play made him a millionaire.
Born Taidje Khan on July 11, 1917, on the island of Sakhalin off northern Japan, Brynner was the son of a Mongolian mining engineer and a Gypsy mother who died at his birth. His father was born in Switzerland and later secured Swiss citizenship and changed the family name to Brynner.
For the first eight years of his life, young Yul lived in China, and then was sent by his father to live with his maternal grandmother in Paris, but she died soon afterward. He attended a Paris school for a time, but dropped out at the age of 13 and joined a Gypsy troupe as a traveling minstrel.
He worked as an acrobat in a French circus for three years, performing on the high trapeze. But after a bad injury, Brynner turned from the circus to the stage.
It was acting that brought Brynner to America, touring in a struggling Shakespearean troupe on college campuses. He added English and some Russian (learned from other actors) to his collection of languages that included French, Japanese and Hungarian while playing small parts and driving the troupe’s bus–all for $25 a week.
In February, 1946, he made his debut on Broadway, playing an Oriental prince opposite Mary Martin in “Lute Song.” After 142 performances, Brynner took the show on tour.
But Brynner had doubts about his ultimate success as an actor. Years later, he remembered one night on stage–long before “The King and I”–when an outraged theatergoer hit him with a shoe. “And it was a perfectly serviceable shoe,” he said. “The man must have really hated me.”
Brynner returned to New York in 1948, putting aside his stage acting ambitions and settling comfortably into the role of actor, director and producer in the fledgling television industry, ultimately directing episodes of “Studio One,” one of the more successful live, anthology television shows of the 1950s.
But Brynner fell in love with the script of “The King and I” when Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein offered him the role. Hammerstein had seen Brynner in “Lute Song,” thought well of him and was influenced by Martin’s recommendation.
The musical story of the imperious Thai king and the proper British teacher, Anna Leonowens, who went to Siam in the 1860s to instruct the king’s huge flock of offspring and then had to acclimate herself to his court habits of polygamy and bowing at ground-level, had a rocky start when it opened out of town in New Haven, Conn., in February, 1951.
“It was a disaster,” Brynner said in 1981. “It was almost five hours long. There was nothing but conflict between Anna and the King. . . . Rogers and Hammerstein understood immediately that unless there was an underlying fascination (between the two characters), then there really couldn’t be a fascinating show.”
With the book cut and sweetened, as well as a couple of new songs added (“Shall We Dance” and “Getting to Know You”) the show, starring Gertrude Lawrence and Brynner, opened in New York at the St. James Theater on March 29, 1951. It was a first-night hit.
“Richard Rodgers told me, ‘You opened. You have a hit. Now freeze it,’ ” he said in late 1984, just before opening in yet another Broadway revival of the show.
The above “Los Angeles Times” obituary can also be accessed online here.
A website on Yul Brynner can be accessed here.
Yul Brynner (1915–1985) was one of the most distinctive and mythic figures of mid‑20th‑century cinema and stage—a performer whose charisma lay in absolute control: the voice, the gaze, the body, and even the polished dome of his head became instruments of theatrical authority. Over a four‑decade career spanning Broadway, Hollywood, European art cinema, and television, Brynner created a persona that fused regal composure with physical dynamism. He became both a symbol of postwar international masculinity and an emblem of performance as ritual: stylized, sensual, and commanding.
Early Life and Formation
Born Yuliy Borisovich Bryner in Vladivostok (then the Russian Empire) of Swiss‑Mongolian ancestry, Brynner’s biography was as cinematic as his acting style. After a turbulent youth—he worked as a trapeze artist and guitarist—he emigrated to Paris, performing in cabaret and studying theater, before moving to the United States in 1940.
Fluent in multiple languages but heavily accented in English, he began as a radio announcer and minor actor, soon directing and performing on Broadway. His mixed heritage and androgynous magnetism set him apart from Hollywood’s conventional leading men; rather than assimilate, Brynner turned his difference into mystique.
Breakthrough: The King and I (1951, stage; 1956, film)
Brynner’s creation of King Mongkut of Siam in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I defined his image for life. On stage (premiering on Broadway in 1951) and later in the 1956 film adaptation, Brynner fused movement, voice, and physicality into a uniquely stylized performance that became a kind of performance myth.
Stage Impact
- Critics in 1951 described him as “an actor who rules by body language alone.”
Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times observed that Brynner “uses stillness as other actors use gesture.” - His combination of wit, intelligence, erotic tension with Anna (Gertrude Lawrence), and authoritarian charm created one of Broadway’s few truly modern heroes—exotic but self‑aware.
Film Adaptation (1956)
Brynner’s film version, directed by Walter Lang, won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. The camera amplified his authority: the gleaming head, perfectly postured torso, and percussive diction translated theatrical stylization into cinematic presence.
He avoided caricature by emphasizing the King’s self‑satirizing intelligence—a man both absolute monarch and eager student of Europe. Critics such as Bosley Crowther called the portrayal “dictatorial and human… a performance of imperial rhythm.”
Retrospectively, however, some scholars have analyzed its Orientalist framing: Brynner’s charisma lent dignity to a role written within Western fantasies of the “civilized East.” Yet even within those confines, he carved a portrait of transformation—pride yielding to empathy—and gave mainstream audiences an early image of complexity in a non‑Western protagonist.
Brynner would reprise the role on stage for nearly 4,600 performances between 1951 and 1985, turning it into a personal ritual—the ultimate fusion of star and part.
Hollywood Stardom: 1950s–1960s
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Cast as Rameses II opposite Charlton Heston’s Moses, Brynner projected sculptural majesty—every line delivered with hieratic force. Cecil B. DeMille photographed him as living granite, the perfect embodiment of divine narcissism. The dual casting of King Mongkut and Rameses the same year solidified his image as the modern cinematic monarch: imperious, exotic, yet visually modern in his baldness and physique.
Anastasia (1956)
Opposite Ingrid Bergman, he played General Bounine, a cynical White Russian con‑artist turned romantic believer. Here he exchanged imperial stiffness for ironic sensuality; reviewers admired the subtle thaw of skepticism into protectiveness. Brynner’s chemistry with Bergman revealed his ability to suggest tenderness beneath formality.
The Brothers Karamazov (1958)
As Dmitri Karamazov under Richard Brooks’s direction, Brynner ventured into psychological tragedy. Critics were divided: some found his intensity riveting, others felt his self‑containment at odds with Dostoyevskian chaos. Yet his low, deliberate vocal tempo gave the performance tragic gravity reminiscent of stylized European acting traditions rather than Hollywood naturalism.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
John Sturges’s Western recast Brynner as charismatic leader Chris Adams, translating his regal demeanor into democratic heroism. Dressed in black, his stoic composure and moral authority anchored the ensemble. His minimal gesture—hand resting on hip, head inclined—became an American archetype. The performance is often cited as one of the most economical studies in command: the leader as contained energy.
Roger Ebert later wrote that Brynner’s “calm amid gunfire gives the film its mythic center.”
Taras Bulba (1962), Future World (1976) and others
Throughout the 1960s, Brynner oscillated between adventure epics (Solomon and Sheba, Kings of the Sun), modern thrillers, and costume dramas. Even when scripts faltered, he drew focus; his voice—the burnished baritone tinged with indeterminate accent—carried authority independent of context.
Re‑Invention: Westworld (1973)
Michael Crichton’s Westworld cast Brynner as the robotic Gunslinger, a merciless embodiment of mechanical masculinity. Clad in the black costume reminiscent of The Magnificent Seven, he became the blueprint for the “android menace.”
The performance is minimalist to the point of conceptual art: posture, gait, and deadpan gaze reduced to algorithm. Critics hailed how Brynner weaponized his own iconography—the calm authority of his previous roles now emptied of humanity. Pauline Kael called it “a performance of chilling assurance: he acts by existing.” The role influenced later depictions of the cinematic cyborg, including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.
Stage Commitment and Late Career
Even while making films, Brynner repeatedly returned to The King and I: 1951–54 original Broadway run, mid‑1950s and 1960s revivals, a 1977 tour, and his final Broadway revival (1985)—a literal life‑long role. His last performance occurred months before his death from lung cancer.
He also ventured into Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan on stage, though those efforts were overshadowed by association with the King. Nonetheless, theater critics admired his discipline and exacting technique—his performances often described as “ritualistic demonstrations of presence.”
Style and Technique: Critical Analysis
1. Physical Economy
Brynner’s acting is built from stillness and geometry. He employed angular poses and deliberate pacing, rarely fidgeting. Like a dancer, he controlled energy through spine alignment and ocular focus. Every movement signified authority.
Film scholars often label this “Brynner minimalism”: action as sculptural form.
2. Voice and Accent
His command of the English language, colored by indeterminate accent, gave him universality—neither East nor West, aristocrat nor proletarian. The voice blended warmth and threat, making exposition compelling by rhythm alone.
3. Cultural Hybridity
Throughout his career, Brynner embodied the postwar fascination with cosmopolitan identity: born Russian, performing Asian, Egyptian, Mexican, or futuristic identities. Scholars view him as both beneficiary and prisoner of this fluid exoticism—Hollywood’s first globally ambiguous male star.
4. Erotic Power and Authority
Brynner’s masculinity was paradoxically modern—clean‑shaven, bald, and meticulously groomed, replacing ruggedness with refinement. His eroticism was tactile yet aloof, appealing across gender lines. In The King and I, that erotic friction between domination and curiosity became emblematic of mid‑century romantic tension.
5. Interpretive Focus
He seldom dissolved into characters; instead, roles conformed to his own aura. Critics divide on this: some consider him limited in range, others see a formalist mastery akin to Kabuki or Noh. His strength lay not in psychological transformation but in iconic embodiment—ritual repetition elevated to art.
Critical Reevaluation and Legacy
In the decades since his death, Brynner’s reputation has evolved from exotic novelty to actor of stylized mastery.
- Film scholars (such as David Thomson and Molly Haskell) note how he anticipated the global, physically coded acting style later seen in actors like Toshiro Mifune or Jean Reno.
- Theatre historians regard his lifelong commitment to The King and I as the archetypal instance of a performance transforming into ritual art—comparable to Gielgud’s Hamlet or Olivier’s Othello in defining an epoch’s performance vocabulary.
- Cultural critics recognize that Brynner’s depictions of “otherness” prefigure Hollywood’s problematic yet evolving engagement with racial identity: his dignity within Orientalist frames complicated audience stereotypes rather than simply reproduce them.
He left an influence visible in cinematic archetypes: the commanding team leader (The Magnificent Seven), the noble autocrat who learns compassion (The King and I), and the machine that mirrors human arrogance (Westworld).
Summary Evaluation
| Aspect | Distinctive Qualities |
|---|---|
| Physical Presence | Sculptural stillness; controlled athleticism; dance‑trained grace |
| Vocal Expression | Baritone resonance; measured cadence articulating authority |
| Screen Persona | The cosmopolitan ruler—commanding yet introspective |
| Strengths | Charismatic precision, stylization as high art, transnational appeal |
| Limitations | Limited range outside authoritarian or ritualized figures; occasional emotional opacity |
| Masterworks | The King and I (stage & film), The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, The Hit’s spiritual counterpoint (Westworld) |
| Legacy | Redefined postwar male charisma through elegance, economy, and international hybridity |
In essence:
Yul Brynner transformed every appearance into ceremony. Whether as monarch, mercenary, or machine, he acted from the spine outward, communicating meaning through posture and tone rather than psychological exposition. His career demonstrates how acting can transcend naturalism to become symbolic—a performance style at once theatrical and cinematic, rooted in discipline and mystery. In doing so, Brynner secured his place as one of the most singular and enduring icons of 20th‑century performance