Written By: Michael D. McClellan |Victor Newman wasn’t supposed to hang around the fictional town of Genoa City, Wisconsin, this long. The conniving businessman first appeared on CBS’s The Young and the Restless way back in 1980, when he was written into the plot for an eight-to-twelve week run. That was more than long enough for Eric Braeden, who wasn’t convinced he wanted to make his living on a daytime soap opera, not when he’d been plenty busy in Hollywood since landing there in 1960 with $500 in his pocket and zero acting experience on his resumé. Tall, athletic, and unnervingly handsome, the German-born actor had racked up 120 TV and film credits during his first two decades in show business, appearing in everything from The Rat Patrol to Hawaii Five-O to Gunsmoke, so, for Braeden – born Hans Gudegast in Kiel, Germany, at the height of World War II – a short-term commitment was plenty long enough to test the waters. Talk about a plot twist: Turns out the despicable, contemptible, unfaithful wife abuser wasn’t killed off as originally scripted, not with a nationwide audience swooning over the show’s dangerous new character and CBS execs taking notice of the ratings spike. Producer William Joseph Bell promptly offered Braeden a role as a series regular, and Braeden has spent the past 40 years turning Victor Newman into soap opera’s leading male figure.
“What a ride it has been,” he says in his recognizable low-toned voice. “I am enormously grateful to the writers and my fellow actors, and most importantly, to Bill Bell.”
Since arriving in Genoa City, on business, Newman has formed his own worldwide conglomerate, forged a supercouple pairing with stripper Nikki Reed (Melody Scott Thomas), cheated on Nikki with Ashley Abbott (Eileen Marie Davidson), had a son who grew up without knowledge of Victor being his father (Adam Newman, played by Justin Hartley), and engaged in a long-running business rivalry with Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman). Forty years of twists and turns jump-started by a conversation that Braeden had with his tennis partner, comedic actor Dabney Coleman, who had logged a stint playing a doctor on the NBC soap Bright Promise from 1971-72.
“He said, ‘Do it. You’ll love it,’” Braeden recalls. “Upon that advice, I agreed to come in for an interview.”
Braeden not only developed an instant rapport with Bell, he thrived on the grueling pace of soap opera production. After four-plus decades of working on a show that typically shoots 100 to 120 pages a day, Braeden can’t imagine toiling at the pace of what he calls “nighttime TV.”
“That would bore the shit out of me,” he says flatly. “I have no interest in it.”
Braeden’s character has since found himself entangled in hundreds of storylines, from amnesia, to near death experiences, to more than a dozen on-screen marriages. But it’s Victor’s layered backstory, as a child abandoned by his parents who rose to fortune and fame, that Braeden says makes the character so fulfilling to play.
“He’s on one hand tough, ruthless, does whatever he has to, but he’s also vulnerable. He wants to be loved and he wants to love, but he can’t really. He’s a loner. It’s a fantastic part.”
Courtesy ABC-publicity
The odds of Braeden landing such a role in the first place – much less making it his own and turning it into one of the most iconic characters in the history of daytime television – were practically unfathomable as a young child growing up in war-torn Germany. His father’s death plunged the family into poverty, and the prospects of a prosperous future appeared dim. Braeden’s work ethic and athletic frame led to a track scholarship at the University of Montana, as well as an opportunity to conquer Idaho’s notorious Salmon River – otherwise known as ‘The River of No Return.’ The resulting documentary film delivered $500 and a bus ride to Los Angeles. Determined to stick, Braeden moved into a cheap hotel room and started parking cars.
“I knew nothing about how Hollywood worked, and I had no acting experience. The unknown was worth the risk to me – I had first dissected cadavers at the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas, where a German cousin of mine was a doctor. Then I ventured from that to Montana. I was a cowboy on a ranch outside of Missoula. I worked at a lumber mill. Trying my hand at acting was my ticket out.”
That Greyhound bus ride came during the fall of 1960. A year later he landed his first uncredited role in something called Operation Eichmann, a fictional hunt for the architect of Hitler’s atrocities. From there, Braeden kept working and never looked back, scoring roles in Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, M.D., Barnaby Jones, CHiPs, Kojak, Cannon, Mannix, and The Six Million Dollar Man. At one point, Braeden was even a serious candidate to replace Sean Connery as James Bond. He’s acted in James Cameron’s Titanic, and produced and starred in his own feature film, The Man Who Came Back. He’s been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A decorated career by any measure, and one capped by that 40-year run as Victor Newman – a role for which Braeden is eternally grateful.
Courtesy Twentieth-Century-Fox
“The fans have been tremendous,” he says. “Their support over the years has been the one constant that makes playing the role of Victor Newman so rewarding, and the big reason it has been so easy to stick around for so long.”
With that, the legendary actor with the charming-but-despicable alter-ego settles in for the interview, and the stories pour out – tales of playing tennis with princes, of making movies with Brando and Brynner, and of sharing the silver screen with a young Leonardo DiCaprio. All of them connected to those forty years of scripted ruthlessness and bound together by a lifetime of hard work.
Eric Braeden might be an acting legend, but he’s earned it every step of the way.
There’s nothing despicable about that.
I hope you’re staying safe during this coronavirus pandemic. How do you occupy your time?
All of the studios are either closed or locked down. I don’t mind it, to be honest with you, I really don’t. I get to read a lot, and I love that. I read five publications a day – newspapers from Germany, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal – not from front to back, obviously, but I do read the opinion sections and the most important articles. I work out a lot. I talk to my family. It makes time go by very fast. It really is not that difficult right now, as long as one stays away from that virus.
Did you ever envision a world like the COVID-19 world we’re living in today?
I live in a beautiful area, so I’m very fortunate that way. My heart goes out to those that don’t know where their next meal is coming from, or how to pay their rent. That bothers me a great deal, because I have been there. I have felt that pain, you know? There’s nothing worse than being in financial need. It’s the worst. It’s a killer. I lived through those times after the war in Germany, and I’ve seen what it did to the people that fell victim to it. We didn’t have hot running water. We had an outhouse. My first years over here were not easy either, so I know what it means to wonder whether you can pay your rent or not. It’s not a good feeling. Anyway, I feel for those people who are suffering because they’ve lost their jobs…waitresses, people in the service industry…it’s tough man. It’s awful.
Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox
Take me back to the beginning. You were born in Germany, at the height of World War II.
I was born in Kiel, Germany, during World War II. The city was bombed heavily during that time. In fact, the Allies dropped about 500,000 bombs on Kiel between 1941 and the end of the war in 1945, during which time 90% of the city was destroyed. There were 200 women giving birth in the basement of the hospital because of the bombing, and we barely made it out alive.
You are no stranger to hard times. Please tell me about your childhood.
I grew up in the German village of Bredenbek, which was the kind of farm country where all you saw was people working from sun up to sun down. My father had a trucking business, and he used his trucks to build roads and oil bunkers and all kinds of stuff. He had four or five drivers. I remember them starting very early in the morning and working all day. We wound up with nothing when my father died, and we plunged into poverty. At that point I started working on the farms around the village, so I’ve made my own money since I was 12 years old. I never got a penny from anyone. I don’t know any differently. It was hard work. During harvest time, I cleaned out horse stalls. By the way, horse manure smells good compared to cow manure, compared to pig manure, compared to chicken manure. I am very grateful to my childhood in many ways, although, to be frank with you, I can do without the poverty. Sometimes people romanticize poverty. My ass. Poverty is terrible. It’s the worst.
Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox
There’s an old African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child.
The great thing about growing up in a small village is that everybody knows you, so that adage is very true in my case. People looked out for you. They made sure you stayed out of trouble, and they were always there when you needed them. So yes, the village did help raise me to a certain extent. For that I’m thankful. Those were tough times after my father died. That stayed with me for decades. I was close to my dad. We were four boys at home and he was a man’s man, and a goodhearted man. I miss him to this day.
What was school like for a young Eric Braeden?
We had fights at school almost every day. It wasn’t this politically correct bullshit that prevails in schools today where they have fights, and it’s like, “Oh my God, call the parents, and call the school psychologist.” No, we fought it out. Boom. End of story.
Funny thing about those schoolyard fights. The teacher would come out, and everyone would make a circle around us and watch. If the fight got too bad, the teacher would say, “Okay, that’s enough.” That was it. Then when you went off into the school and went to class. If the score was unsettled then you waited for that guy outside of school, in some lonely country park, and you beat the shit out of him.
You’re world renowned for portraying Victor Newman in The Young and the Restless, but you were also an outstanding athlete.
I grew up in track and field in Germany, and I won the junior youth championship with my team. My disciplines were discus, javelin, and shot put. We won the German championship, and a year later I came to America. I had a scholarship in track and field, at the University of Montana in Missoula.
Courtesy Universal-Pictures
Please tell me about your track and field career at the University of Montana.
It was a very demanding period in my life. My scholarship only covered tuition and didn’t cover living expenses, so I got a job and worked from six in the evening until two in the morning in a lumber mill outside of Missoula. I worked on the green chain, pulling lumber for those eight hours. My first lecture was at eight in the morning, and I didn’t arrive home until 3 a.m., so you can imagine how many hours one slept. Then I had classes all morning, followed by track and field practice in the afternoon. I would try to sleep for an hour before I went back to work, so it was not a very good time, to be quite frank with you.
How hard was it for you to leave your homeland and move to the United States?
It was hard in that Germany is where I was born and raised, but I’ve been in awe of this country from the very beginning. I must say, one of the pleasant surprises about coming to America was how welcoming the people were. I didn’t go anywhere that I wasn’t welcomed. I can honestly say that America has been wonderful and very hospitable in that way. I think Americans, in their DNA, remember that their forefathers were immigrants as well, you know? It’s basically a welcoming and openhearted country. There are no two ways about that.
I also have to say that Americans appreciate it if you are good at something. It doesn’t make any difference where you came from or what you had done before. If you are good, bingo. It’s different than Europe in that sense. This is truly a country of unlimited possibilities. All of those clichés are true. It’s tough, no question. I am deeply grateful to this country.
Courtesy CBS Television Network
How did you end up in Hollywood?
I had a girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s boyfriend wanted to make a documentary film about a river trip on the Salmon River in Idaho. The Salmon River is known as ‘The River of No Return.’ Well, he was something of a tough, adventurous guy, and he couldn’t find anyone to go with him. I asked, “What’s the upshot?” He said that no one had ever gone up and down the Salmon River because everyone knew how dangerous it was, and that we could be the first – and we would have a documentary film that we could then take with us to California. I said, flatly, “I’m in.” Anything to get the hell out of Montana. Montana might have been beautiful, but to me it was working at a lumber mill from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
It was an experience of a lifetime. The Salmon River is full of rapids, hence the name, ‘The River of No Return.’ Going down the river is one thing, but going down and up is a completely different story. Try to imagine going up those rapids, and fighting through them in a 50-foot aluminum Crestline boat with a 40-horsepower Johnson motor outside. When you’d hit the rapids you’d just you inch along, and then, if you hit the wrong spot, you’d lose power. You were always in danger of flipping over. It was damned dangerous.
Well, we made that river trip and we were successful. We took the film with us on a Greyhound bus and went to Los Angeles, where we did a press conference arranged by Johnson Motors and Alcoa. We each got 500 bucks. He went back to his fiancée, who was pregnant at the time, and I stayed. I didn’t know a soul here. It didn’t matter. I had 500 bucks in my pocket, so I rented a room in a cheap hotel and started parking cars. Then I worked for a furniture moving company. That’s how I came to LA.
Take me back to those early years in Hollywood. Was it hard breaking into acting?
You hear all of the stories about how hard it is to work as a professional actor in Hollywood. This is largely true. It’s a cutthroat business, and the odds are not in your favor. For me, coming from war-torn Germany, those obstacles weren’t something that I really dwelled on. I pushed on and I persevered.
Starting out, my first role was playing a Nazi in a television series called Combat!. Then I played a Nazi in The Rat Patrol. I used to play all kinds of heavies – a Russian heavy, a French heavy, an English heavy, whatever…as long as they paid, I didn’t give a damn. I was one of the few people working. I must say the business has been very good to me. I was rarely turned down. That rarely happened, except for James Bond.
Courtesy CBS Television Network
Eric Braeden as James Bond?
They found out that I was German, so that was the end of that. But they were interested. When Sean Connery said no for the first time, they were looking for another one. The producer, Cubby Broccoli, had seen me in a film called Colossus, and he was interested. We had lunch and he asked if I still had a British passport. I learned British English and German in high school, and every so often I fall back into that, so when they found out that I was German that was the end of that story.
The Rat Patrol was a hit. Please tell me about this experience.
We did the pilot in Yuma, Arizona, and filmed the first 16 segments in Almería, which is located in the South of Spain. This was 1966. We filmed in Almería because they have desert-like areas there. It’s a fascinating area with a mixture of cultures. In the midst of all that, you had the Gypsies – they were called Gitanos – who lived in mountain caves. They sang beautiful, heartfelt songs. Because I played soccer with most of them in-between scenes, and because they liked that I spoke some Spanish, they invited me and my wife to the cuevas – the caves – at night to list to the music.
Francisco Franco was still the dictator in Spain at the time we were filming The Rat Patrol, so everything was hush-hush. You didn’t talk politics. The South of Spain held out the longest against Franco during the Spanish Civil War – in Almería, particularly. They called Almería “el culo del mundo” – the asshole of the world – because it had held out so long against Franco. I remember seeing all of these destroyed buildings and houses with bullet holes, all of it from the revolution in 1936. It was a fascinating time to be there. You had this present-day dictatorship, and then you had this medieval Catholicism that had taken root when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella came to power in the 1400s. They were the ones who sponsored Columbus’s trip to the Americas. Until then, much of Spain was under Muslim rule. When they came to power, they threw out the Muslims.
Courtesy ABC-publicity
The Rat Patrol wasn’t the only time you filmed in the South of Spain.
I went back there two years later and did a film called 100 Rifles with Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Raquel Welch. We actually filmed in the same area. When we did The Rat Patrol, Clint Eastwood was doing one of those Spaghetti Westerns in the same area.
You have acted with a Who’s Who of Hollywood royalty, including the late, great Marlon Brando. What was that like?
To be frank with you, I’m just very fortunate. I’ve worked with a lot of fantastic people. One of my first films was a film called Morituri, starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. We filmed onboard a ship off Catalina Island. I think the captain was from New Zealand and the crew was Chinese.
Marlon and I did a scene together, and afterwards we starting talking and became friendly. We talked about politics and history, mostly. He was interested in German history, especially recent German history, and Nazi history in particular. He was also very concerned with civil rights and Native Americans at the time, so we had some interesting conversations. He was an interesting character. And let me tell you, Marlon Brando was a damned good athlete. He was a stocky guy, and strong. We used to throw the football outside on the stages of 20th Century Fox between scenes and talk history. He had a good arm.
Yul Brynner was one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Truly, that guy could tell stories in five languages. Most people say, “I can speak a second language,” or, “I can speak in several languages.” Bullshit. They speak a little bit of something. Yul Brynner was fluent in five languages. He was a genuinely bright guy and one of the best raconteurs that I think I’ve ever met.
Interestingly, Yul and Marlon didn’t like each other. They were both tough guys.
As an actor, did you learn anything from your side jobs that you were able to take with you to the studio?
I learned how to curse in English, and I will tell you how. I was working for a furniture moving company in Los Angeles. I was working a job in West Los Angeles with an old geezer – and old American guy – and we were carrying a refrigerator up a flight of stairs for an old lady. He was on the top of the fridge and I was on the bottom. The old lady was telling us not to hit this and that, not to damage the wall, not to bump the handrail. Well, we’re barely holding onto this fridge and doing our best to make it up these creaky stairs. Finally, my partner says, “Lady, will you shut the fuck up?” I will never forget that moment. I love the expression. It’s imprinted in my mind. I remember being in that moment and trying to translate that expression into German. Shut the fuck up. And I thought to myself, “Wait a minute – he’s turning a verb into a noun!” I will never forget the moment. I remember the time of day, I remember where on the steps I was when he said it. I loved it. It sounded wonderful. Shut the fuck up.
Let’s talk about The Young and the Restless. Congratulations on 40 years as part of the cast!
First of all, the fact that one has been steadily employed for 40 years is a luxury one can really only appreciate when you work in this business. Because, I’ve been working more or less steadily since 1962, long before I joined Y&R. I’ve acted in The Rat Patrol, Mission: Impossible, Mannix…the list goes on and on. So I’ve just been very fortunate in that I’ve never really been unemployed for a long time. That is not the typical life of an actor.
Y&R of course, has been a blessing. There are so many fond memories, such as Victor Newman meeting his mother for the first time, played by Dorothy McGuire, and, of course, Victor meeting his father, played by George Kennedy. What a wonderful man, George Kennedy. He subsequently did a film of mine called The Man Who Came Back. I have the deepest respect for George Kennedy. He was a big man, about 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds, and just the nicest human being. Tough guy. Very smart. A wonderful actor. A gentleman of the old school. Sean Young used to set almost by his feet in between scenes, and he would tell her stories of Hollywood. I was greatly saddened by his passing.
I’ve done some very memorable scenes with Jack Abbott and Peter Bergman. They were also wonderful actors to work with. And also Melody Thomas Scott, who plays Nikki. Our characters have had our ups and downs on the show, and I love working with her. I adore her as a human being.
Courtesy WATCH
You played a friendly tennis match with fellow actor Dabney Coleman in the late 1970s. That match helped you land the iconic role as conniving business mogul Victor Newman.
Dabney and I met through acting and shared a love of tennis. Do you know Alex Olmedo, who won Wimbledon in 1959? Alex and Dabney used to play tennis regularly, and I would play with them on occasion. Well, we were playing tennis one afternoon, and I had recently learned that this role on a daytime soap had opened up. Dabney had done a soap at one time or another, so I asked him what it was all about. He said, “Do it. You’ll love it.” I didn’t watch daytime television, so I didn’t even know that they had that kind of stuff on daytime television. I didn’t know what the hell it was. I had no clue. But Dabney is a serious actor and I trusted him. Had I not gotten that recommendation, I wouldn’t have gone to the casting call. The rest is a 40 year history.
The Young and the Restless is a big part of people’s lives.
What has really impressed me as an actor – and this has only happened because of Y&R – is the enormous influence one has on people’s lives. I never realized that until I became Victor Newman. I’ve done more than 120 guest shots over the years, appearing on everything from Hawaii Five-O to Gunsmoke to The F.B.I. and on and on, but I never realized what an effect we have on people just by doing what we do. Y&R taught me that.
Before Y&R, I had never gone out and done a public appearance on behalf of a show. Never. Then Doug Davidson and I, who plays Detective Paul Williams, went to a huge market just outside of Toronto, the biggest market in North America. I will never forget it. There were 15,000 people crammed into a little area in that big market, and all of them were there just to see us. I looked at Doug and said, “Are you serious?” But that’s example of the impact that we have on people’s lives. We reach between four and five million people every week. It’s just extraordinary.
Courtesy CBS Television Network
You’ve been playing Victor Newman since 1980. There have been fans who’ve been there with you every step of the way.
I really, really appreciate the fans, to be honest with you. Other than the income we make, which is nice, the most satisfying thing is to know that you impact people’s lives. Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve had such wonderful experiences with the fans. I’ve made two appearances in Charleston, West Virginia over the years, in the middle of one of your malls. I will never forget that, for example.
Victor Newman is an iconic character. Are you ever surprised by the fame that has come along with it?
It has been enormously humbling. There are several examples that come to mind. I remember playing in a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo. I’m sitting with my wife and son at a table, and Harry Belafonte, who was part of the whole thing, walked over and said, “Would you mind saying hello to the people at the table over there? They would love to meet you.” I said that it would be my pleasure, so I got up and walked over and shook hands. They were very nice. They spoke French, and a little English, so we made small talk, bah-bah-bah, and then Harry took me back to my table. I politely asked him who they were, and he a very surprised look on his face. He said, “You don’t know who they are?” I said that I had no idea. He said, “That was President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia. He and his family watch the show.”
Another time I was in Istanbul with some of the cast, and we were invited to appear on TV by a station there. Tansu Çiller, the Prime Minister of Turkey, was throwing a big party later that evening. Melody Thomas Scoot, who plays Nikki, went to the party with me. We were treated like rock stars. And I thought, “You must be kidding. This can’t be true.”
In Israel I was invited to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and had conversations with Shimon Peres about politics. So it has been wonderful in that sense.
In your critically acclaimed autobiography, I’ll Be Damned: How My Young and Restless Life Led Me to America’s #1 Daytime Drama, you write about Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. Tell me about that.
I was able to give a speech for Mikhail Gorbachev when he was here in Los Angeles and, afterwards, Nancy Reagan invited me to give a similar speech for Ronald Reagan. It was a tremendous honor, because both men were such historically significant personalities. Growing up in a small German village, I never dreamed that one day I might be giving speeches to two of the most powerful people on earth.
In terms of their historical significance, I call Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev the two most important men in the second half of the 20th century. People always look at me and say, “Why is that?” and I say that it’s because they prevented a third world war. People forget how close we were to a war with Russia. Whatever I think of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan politically or otherwise is beside the point. That is an extraordinary accomplishment. Think about it. Two people met from two different philosophies, one being a harsh capitalist the other being a hardline communist, but they found something in common as human beings. I will never forget it. People have no clue as to how close we were to war, and how important it was that Ronald Reagan was willing to reach out to Gorbachev as a human being. I think Nancy had a lot to do with it, and her contributions were absolutely critical.
We could use some of that to help heal the divisions in the United States today.
This whole rift between liberals and conservatives in America, and all of this ideological bullshit going back and forth…you know, if you just got to know each other a little bit more, and you sat down somewhere and had a beer and a tequila and began to shoot the shit, you would begin to like each other as human beings.
I’ve heard that a soap opera averages 80 pages of script per day. How does that compare to an evening drama, or even a feature film?
Eighty pages is the low end. There are some days that go up to 100-to-120 pages. It’s insane. The great thing about daytime is that I come in, I concentrate like crazy, focus like crazy, learn that stuff, and then I make it as real as I can. The most I’ve ever done personally is 62 pages in one day. Many of us routinely do 20, 30, 40 pages a day.
A feature film is nothing compared to that. Unless I starred in it, I would not be interested in films anymore because they are too boring. You spend most of your time sitting around on the set waiting for other people to do their job. If I had continued doing nighttime television or film, I would have been directing by now. Daytime television is what keeps you on your toes. You’ve got to cram that shit and make it your own.
You played the character John Jacob Astor IV in James Cameron’s Titanic. There were a lot of people who thought that movie was going to flop, but it became both a critical success and one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
James Cameron is a genius – an extremely bright guy with balls of steel. While we were doing that movie, both 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures were scared shitless that they would lose their shirts. They thought they would go broke, because the budget ballooned over $100 million, and it had never been done before. My God, did he prove them wrong.
Courtesy CBS Television Network
James Cameron must have been under enormous pressure.
We were filming near in Rosarito, Mexico, which is near Tijuana, and also in Baja, California. The studio brass would sometimes come down at lunch and sit there in their suits, because they wanted to exert pressure on him. I’ll never forget, I was standing behind him in the lunch line and his assistant came up to him and says, “Well, the suits are here,” meaning the executives from the studios. And he says, “Fuck ‘em. Just bring my food to the dressing room. I don’t want anything to do with them right now.” It was a tense time, because the cost overrun reminded them of Cleopatra, and Cleopatra had nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. They were afraid the same thing would happen with this film, which was not only expensive, it didn’t have the star power of actors like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. James Cameron was making this film with relatively unknown actors – [Leonardo] DiCaprio was not really known at the time. So I’m sure the executives thought, “What are we doing? We’re making Titanic, and we may go down with the Titanic.”
Did you think that Titanic would become a massive hit?
I have to say, I’m probably one of the few people who predicted that James Cameron would be very successful with that film. I was interviewed by a beat writer from The Hollywood Reporter, and he says, “You’re the only one who keeps saying that is going to be successful.” I replied, “Well, I’m in the top-rated soap opera on television,” and he says, “What does that have to do with Titanic?” And I just smiled and said, “This movie is a soap opera – albeit, a very expensive one. It’s going to make a fortune.”
Courtesy Twentieth-Century-Fox
What was it like watching Titanic for the first time?
James Cameron was a big fan of the film Colossus, which I did at Universal Studios in the late ‘60s, so he couldn’t have been nicer. We had finished filming my scenes around Christmas, and afterwards I called him up and asked if I could come down for a visit with my son, who was then a film student at UCLA, my wife, and my future daughter-in-law. He was absolutely fine with that, so we drove down to the set. He stopped shooting when we got there, and he took us into his trailer and showed us the first cut of the first five minutes of Titanic. He had already played Céline Dion’s beautiful song, My Heart Will Go On, for us. I got goosebumps watching it. I said, “You are going to make a fucking fortune on this.” And he did.
What was it like to be part of something like Titanic?
The acting was superb. Leo [Leonardo DiCaprio] is a wonderful actor. He continues to turn in amazing performances and make great films. What some don’t see is that he works incredibly hard at his craft. Billy Zane is another fine actor. Billy acted in my film, The Man Who Came Back. I knew Kathy Bates, and I knew what kind of an actor she was. Being a part of Titanic was just a remarkable experience, I must say, and then to see the success of that film…whoa…incredible.
In 2008, you executive-produced and starred in The Man Who Came Back. A wonderful film with an all-star cast.
To be honest with you, it was the best experience of my career. I’ve never enjoyed anything as much as doing that film, in large part because I had decision-making powers as to who we were hiring for the roles. All of the actors who were on will tell you that they had a hell of a time. Billy Zane was part of it, from Titanic. Great actor. Peter Jason is a wonderful actor. Armand Asante, fabulous character actor. We also had George Kennedy, Sean Young, and Carol Alt. We also had former heavyweight champion Kenny Norton – my God, what an honor it was to have him in this film. I have such respect for the man, God rest his soul. It just so happened that we worked out and boxed at the same gym in Watts. Bill Slayton was his trainer, one of the best. Kenny, when we worked on the film together, every so often I would slap him on the shoulder, and Jesus Christ, it was like hitting rock. Even at that age. Wonderful man.
Courtesy Eric Braeden
How did this project come together?
Chuck Walker, who boxed on the 1976 Olympic boxing team in Montréal with Sugar Ray Leonard, is an old friend of mine, and he came to me with the story. I liked it enough to see if we could get the money together and all of that. As it became clear that we were going to make it, I said that we need something that is more than just a revenge story. So it takes place in the latter part of the Reconstruction era in the South. Slavery was officially over with, but in reality it was not. The director, Glen Pitre, was doing some research on this when he came upon a labor strike in 1887, in Thibodaux, Louisiana. He learned that the plantation workers and the railroad workers got together and decided to strike. They wanted to be paid at least a dollar a day. This was especially important to the freed slaves, because many of them had continued working on the big plantations, but they were paid in company scrip – currency that they could only exchange on the company plantation. Because the scrip wasn’t good anywhere outside of the plantation they continued to be in bondage, so they had a strike in Thibodaux. Well, the strikers were mowed down by militia from New Orleans and Lafayette who came with the first Gatling machine guns. They murdered 300 strikers one night. I said, “That’s it. Now we have a story. Let’s go.”
What was it like wearing some many different hats in making The Man Who Came Back?
It was totally satisfying. My only regret is that we admittedly had a little bit too much violence in it. That was my insistence, and I take responsibility for it, because I wanted things to be real. When my character’s wife gets raped and murdered and all of that, I said “Make that as real as possible.” That was a decision I should not have made because it turned off a lot of people. It’s pretty brutal. But beyond that, I absolutely loved doing that film. I’m still friends with all of them. When I had my Y&R 40th anniversary party, all of the actors from that film came, except the ones who had passed away.
How hard was it getting this independent film made?
The bane of the existence of independent producers is that you’ve got to find a distributor. As an independent filmmaker, when you go through a distributor, you get fucked. Meaning, you really have no choice in the matter. They give you a certain amount of money, and that’s the last thing you will ever see. The only way around that is if you’re part of a big studio, or a big company that makes a lot of films. In those cases they can’t screw with you. But if you are an independent film producer, they will take you. They’ll say, “We’ll do this, this, and this,” and then they pay you some money. That’s the last penny you will ever see. And then, try to sue them. You take them to court, and it costs you at least $100,000. And then, if the judgment is in your favor, try to collect it. It’s an old story in Hollywood. They have three books – one for the IRS, one for the studio, and one for the people who own a percentage in the film. They cook the books. They can always say, “We had so many expenses – look at the books, we had this, this, and this.” Sadly, that was our experience. Otherwise, I would have made two or three other films already. I never enjoyed anything as much. Never.
Courtesy Eric Braeden
Let’s talk sports. Tell me about your friendship with Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali was a big fan of Y&R! He invited me to his 50th birthday party at Chasen’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills. My son and I went, and I will never forget it. Another time, I sat beside Ali on a plane ride from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. When we landed he said, “Go my way.” It wasn’t the official way to make it through LAX, the staff took us through all kinds of freight elevators and back hallways off limits to the public, but it was how he could avoid being mobbed by all of his fans. He knew that I was a boxer, so we started shadowboxing in one of the freight elevators. It was a bucket list moment for me.
You love tennis. You’ve played in a lot of celebrity tournaments all over the world.
The last one I played in was with the Ilie Năstase, in Bucharest, Romania. I had been invited to appear on a television show there, and he approached me and I was more than happy to play. Nadia Comaneci got us together, she is a big fan of Y&R. Ilie and I played against too young pros in Bucharest, and we beat them. I’ve played tennis with Chrissy Everett. I played in a tournament with Johan Kriek, against John McEnroe and Chevy Chase. I played an exhibition match in Central Park with Goran Ivanišević, we played against Andrei Chesnokov and Marc Rosset, another tall Swiss guy. Chesnokov was a fantastic athlete. I’ve played with Monica Seles and Tracy Austin quite a bit.
Funny story – I played in a celebrity tournament in Monte Carlo, with Prince Albert as my partner. The first two sets were tight, which we split, and then we were down 4 to 1 in the third set. His father, Prince Rainier, had come in with his entourage and sat down in one of the booths, and you see that he was visibly nervous. The errors started to pile up, and suddenly we were down 4 to 1. I said to myself, “Shit, he’s intimidated by his father.” So I turned to him and said, “Fuck it, Prince. Let’s go.” His eyes light up and he smiles and says, “Yes, fuck it.” We won the third set, and we went on to win the whole thing. I will never forget that moment. Actually, it was very telling about the relationship between father and son.
I’ve also played tennis with a few NBA players as well, but most of them were not that good. The exception to that was Rick Barry. Rick and I played a lot, and Rick was very good. He is 6-foot-7 and had an overpowering serve. What a fantastic athlete.
You were also one hell of a soccer player. Tell me about winning a national championship as part of the Los Angeles Maccabees.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I looked into playing soccer at UCLA, but the school had awarded all of its scholarships that year. Instead, I played for a team that was owned by a restaurant in Beverly Hills called La Scala. The owner, Jean Leon, brought together retired soccer players or players in their early 30s who had finished playing competitively all over the world – in the English First Division, which is known as the English Premiere League today, in the German Division, all over South America.
We played in something called the Greater Los Angeles Soccer League, which was founded in 1903 and is the oldest organized sports league in Los Angeles. Long story short, the Maccabees offered $20 a game. Being a starving student at the time, I jumped at the opportunity. I was a token German on a Jewish team – we had seven Israelis from the Israeli national team, two Ethiopians from the Ethiopian national team, two guys from South America…Brazil and Mexico…also from the first division. So, we had a good team. We made it all the way to the National Cup in 1973 against the Cleveland International Italians, or whatever they were called, and won the national championship.
Do you have a soccer tip you’d like to share?
I never missed a penalty kick in five years. I would tell the goalies I was going for the corners, and then I would hammer the shit out of the ball. You can do that and still put slice on it. The top pros today try to finesse the ball into the net and all of that kind of stuff, but that’s all bullshit. Just hammer the ball. You can look directly at the goalie, but you just hammer it and put spin on it, and it spins away from him. And from that distance, if you hit it hard, I don’t care how fast he is, he may get a finger on it but he’s not going to stop the ball.
Your son, Christian Gudegast, wrote and directed the STX feature film Den of Thieves. You must be proud that he’s followed in your footsteps.
Immensely proud. One of the greatest joys in my life was to raise him. In a sense it’s a father-son relationship that a lot of people dream about. I was tough with him, but he was tough himself. He has my competitive spirit. I took him to the kettle gyms when he was seven and eight years old, and he learned of boxing from early on. He is a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu. He worked with Rob Kaman, the world champion in Muay Thai boxing. He worked with Rickson Gracie, the tough guy in Brazilian jujitsu. He graduated at the top of his class at UCLA. He writes and directs, which is something I would have loved to have done if I’d only had the guts.
It must have been a thrill for you to act in Den of Thieves. What was that experience like for you?
That acting was superb. Gerard Butler and Pablo Schreiber both did wonderful jobs. Christian casts people very carefully. He divided the cast and had them train in the use of weapons weeks before filming began, with the bad guys and the sheriffs training separately. He insisted that they were proficient in the weapons they had to use, because he can’t stand phoniness. He’s like me in that regard. Make it as real as you can. Christian has finished writing the sequel, which he hopes to get made as soon as this coronavirus thing is over with. It’s a waiting game in that regard, because they can’t shoot anywhere in the world now.
Unlike your soap opera character, you have been married to the same woman since 1966. What is the secret to a successful relationship?
It’s tough to be married to an actor. My wife grew up in this town, and she went to school with Frank Sinatra’s daughters. She knew Mia Farrow and all of that. So she is used to that side of the business. It doesn’t impress her. So, she knows what the real story is all about.
I think the important thing is that you have to basically like the other person. You should respect the woman that you are with, or in her case, the man. That “being in love” thing, at some point a metamorphosis takes place and it transforms into the two of you liking each other. There is a lot of forgiveness along the way. People get divorced because sometimes the relationship becomes untenable. They aren’t willing to work through the adversity. It gets tough, but you stick it out.
In 2007, you received what is arguably Hollywood’s highest honor – a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Coming from such a humble upbringing in a small German village, what does this honor mean to you?
It was arguably one of the most important moments in my life. It moved me deeply. Having come to this country as a 18-year-old, with 50 bucks in my pocket and all of that shit, and overcoming all of the hardships along the way…that was one of the most moving experiences in my life.