Yul Brynner

Gay earlier, bi- later.

Punched Anthony Rapp in the stomach for no reason. What an abusive asshole.

Quite big dick.

Huge Pad Thai eater, major FDR supporter

Anthony Rapp is reason enough to punch Anthony Rapp in the stomach.

He was where he was not supposed to be and got in the star's way, in the midst of a performance. No doubt the stage manager got it even worse than the kid did.

If he were 22 today, he’d definitely be sending Drag Race audition videos to World of Wonder and showing himself off in and out of costume on Instagram.

[quote] Quite big dick.

That's 'quite big?' Damn, I should be more proud of mine, then!

Who did he bed?

More like who *didn't* he bed, [R9].

Handsome man for sure but not cool to strike a child.

R9, Mama Cass, Rose.

whatever he was, his personal energy was pure sex. never a role where he didn't exude sexual energy.

one of the most erotic moments on screen, at about the 3:20 mark.

Big smoker, right?

Not anymore!

R14, pole-smoker, yes.

Sometimes big pricks have big pricks.

According to Maria Riva's book, Marlena Dietrich had an affair with him:

"For four years, their secret affair blazed, flickered, smoldered, simmered, then flamed anew—only to repeat its erratic, agonizing pattern all over again. They kept up this emotional upheaval, giving it the name of “love” until, finally, her possessive romanticism began to choke him, and he walked away from what had been an impossible situation from the beginning. He always remembered her with tenderness and joy. She came to hate him with as much passion as she had once adored him. Thirty-four years after their blazing affair, she sent me a newspaper clipping of Yul in a wheelchair, looking pitiable, returning from yet another unsuccessful cancer treatment. Across his haggard face, she had written in her big silver marker: “Goody—goody—he has cancer! Serves him right!”

But in 1951, she thought Yul a “god,” was wildly jealous of his wife, although relieved that she was supposed to have “mental problems,” and spent her days sitting by her phone hoping he would call. He did. Every moment he could capture the privacy needed to dial Dietrich’s number. He was the toast of Broadway, the catalyst force in a most demanding musical, ever perfecting his brilliant performance of the king in The King and I, which was to be his lifelong triumph. He would call the moment he arrived in his dressing room, during the overture, intermission, the second the curtain came down; escaped from friends, admirers, and dignitaries who expected him to join them for their after-theater celebrations, to rush into the trembling arms of his divine goddess. My mother rented a hideaway on Park Avenue, furnished it in Siam silk and gold to complement her lover’s Broadway persona, stocked her kitchen with Russian caviar, superb champagne, and five-inch filet mignons, had my husband install strip lights under the base of her king-size bed, and—Dietrich was in business."

Nice bod!

Don't forget about Yul Brynner and Roman Polanski and their scene in The Magic Christian...waaaaay back when.

Didn't he party up in them Hollywood Hills with Warren Beatty? I would love to have seen what those parties were like back then.

I want to see the home movies with Yul, Robert Vaughn, and Horst Bucholtz during The Magnificent Seven!

R18 Dietrich was 50. If she was regularly riding Yul, good for her!

He was hot.

Top or bottom?

I had never seen that scene from The Magic Christian. WOW!!!

[R21], thanks! I never saw that clip either. What a woman!

He lived to regret his long term heavy smoking habit.

R18, thanks for the info from the MD's daughter's book.

Does the book have anything about James Stewart?

Supposedly, Dietrich and Stewart had an affair when they did "Destry Rides Again" (1939). And supposedly Dietrich hoped to rekindle it when the pair did "No Highway in the Sky" in the UK in 1951. But JS, now married, said "No".

Given that nasty story about MD gloating over YB's cancer, I wondered how she reacted if JS refused her.

Yul was certainly one of the most unique actor-celebrities ever. No one remotely like him.

There have already been several threads on this OP. Would it have killed you to have done a search before you posted this? Would it? What’s wrong with having a little consideration for others and doing a search first? Would it really have been that hard? Would it? Are you going to be able to give us an honest answer to this? Are you?

Didn't Yul also have an affair with Judy? I know Liza is lifelong friends with Yul's son, Rock, who I have heard was a college professor.

There's nothing in the book about it, R29 . She was sleeping with Erich Maria Remarque when Destry was made and the book just states that she thought Stewart was sweet.

Thanks, R33.

30 years ago, I met an older woman who had worked at a NYC answering service in the 1950s. In telling me about the experience, she told me that Marlene Dietrich was a client. One evening, Dietrich called the answering service and instructed my acquaintance to take messages for all incoming calls. She did not want to be disturbed.

"The only calls I will accept this evening are from Mawia Wiva and Ewich Mawia Wemahque."

My acquaintance said it was everything she could possibly do to say, "Yes, Miss Dietrich" with out laughing out loud. I bet it was.

bump

It's twue. it's twue!

R30 People of our generation might say he's a more or most unique celebrity.

But there's an obsessed young man here on DL who insists that Rami Malek is similarly more unique.

Yul Brynner = notoriously difficult, almost psychotic. Shrimp, 5'6" tall

He may have fucked Sal Mineo.

Yul wasn't classically handsome, but there was an earthy sensuality and charisma to him that drew fuck buddies (men and women) to him like moths to a flame.

Short guy, big talent... short fuse 💣

It wasn’t as odd as 1970s rockstars only eating green M&Ms, but Brynner had his rules for life on the road. I remembered reading how he stipulated that his dressing rooms always be painted brown. Here is a citation...

I don't know if I liked this bald man.

He had amazing luck in that he was well-cast in two big films of 1956 but everything after that seemed to be downhill playing miscellaneous ethnicities in B-graders.

And I don't know if he faked his voice downwards to a deeper tone but he always seemed rather fake to me —rather like the mendacious confidence man he played in his 3rd big film of 1956— 'Anastasia' opposite the lovely Ingrid.

Nice bush in those nude photos.

When I saw him in King on Broadway he seemed pretty bored. And he went on touring in it for years afterward. The money must have been incredible. Angela tried it in Mame and Harrison in My Fair Lady both opening at the same airplane hangar as Yul The Uris to milk it like a cow. They bombed.

[quote]Mayor Koch said he was astonished that Mr. Brynner could have been so short and yet have 'filled the room and filled the stage.'

I had no idea he was short.

Even in the clip in drag he seemed 7 feet tall. (Camera angles helped, I’m sure.)

What presence!

His governesses must have been shorties.

I've always been curious about this photo of Yul. Is it a studio casting shot for his role as the Pharaoh ? If so why is he naked except for a white jock and not in costume ? Any film historians out there who can enlighten me ?

Bacall and Brynner, both 5'7"

When did Yul fuck Mineo? Young fresh Mineo or washed up trade Mineo? Either version is hot and tight.

Mr. Brynner made so much money for so many people by touring The King & I. If you were a theater owner or presenter, you had to meet his demands. Each booking was always a successful event and, in exchange, he got what he wanted.

I've known several people who worked on those tours. He wanted more than brown paint in his dressing room. He had a set of plans for a dressing room that had to be constructed for his use in each theater where The King & I was booked. The plans came with requirements color chips for the colors. He lived so much of his life on the road and he wanted his dressing room to be comfortable and familiar and to his liking wherever he went. It is my understanding that he had his own furniture that the production moved for him from theater to theater, just as it moved the sets and costumes. If you didn't want to build out his dressing room, fuck you. No King & I for you. Book something else and good luck with it.

If you did your job well and he liked you, you always had a job with the show the next time it went out. A woman I once knew was his personal assistant on one of those tours. Along the way, she answered to a lot of demands that he made. And at the end of the tour, he thanked her with a Blackglama mink coat.

So, do they also become non-Legends, r50?

^ he's kinda pretty but petulant with that full lower lip. Like that silky, sulky, multi-ethnic guy from the UK

R52 Such a handsome man!

He wasn’t gay, but rather festive.

It's a puzzlement

5' 7' is much less of an issue horizontally than it is vertically

[quote] Punched Anthony Rapp in the stomach for no reason. What an abusive asshole.

[quote] Handsome man for sure but not cool to strike a child.

There are 2 sides to every story.

Just because Anthony Rapp says that Yul Brynner hit him in the stomach does not mean that it happened.

I think Rapp has also acknowledged that 1) during a performance, 2) he was standing some place he was not supposed to be. It seems the more accurate description of the event is that he got shoved out of the way by an actor making an entrance or exit, as is bound to happen to anyone standing in the way during a performance and where they are not supposed to be.

You can't stop the show and expect 1800 people to wait while a stage manager negotiates with young Mr. Rapp to, please, step aside and return to wherever he was supposed to be. Additionally, if Brynner physically assaulted actors... who are the others that he physically assaulted?

"Mr. Brynner made so much money for so many people by touring The King & I..."

What is this MR shit? Are you English?

What are you so unhappy about, Mr R60?