Yul Brynner and Frank Sinatra

Born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA Died May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA Birth Name Francis Albert Sinatra Nicknames The Voice Chairman of the Board Ol' Blue Eyes Swoonatra The Sultan of Swoon La Voz Frankie Height 5' 7" (1.7 m) Mini Bio (1) Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success. After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980) in 1987 as a retired detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter in an episode entitled "Laura". - IMDb Mini Biography By: David Montgomery (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous) Spouse (4) Barbara Marx (11 July 1976 - 14 May 1998) ( his death) Mia Farrow (19 July 1966 - 16 August 1968) ( divorced) Ava Gardner (7 November 1951 - 5 July 1957) ( divorced) Nancy Barbato Sinatra (4 February 1939 - 29 October 1951) ( divorced) ( 3 children) Trade Marks: Crooning voice. Black fedora. Blue eyes. Sports coat. Always wore a three piece suit or tuxedo. Use of 1950's slang. Frequently worked with fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.

Yul Brynner, original name Yuliy Borisovich Bryner, (born July 11, 1920?, Vladivostok, Russia Died October 10, 1985, New York, New York, U.S.), Russian-born stage and film actor who was known primarily for his performance as the Siamese monarch in The King and I. Born July 11, 1920 in Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai, Russia Died October 10, 1985 in New York City, New York, USA (lung cancer) Birth Name Yuli Borisovich Bryner Height 5' 8" (1.73 m) Exotic leading man of American films, famed as much for his completely bald head as for his performances, Yul Brynner masked much of his life in mystery and outright lies designed to tease people he considered gullible. It was not until the publication of the books "Yul: The Man Who Would Be King" and "Empire and Odyssey" by his son, Yul "Rock" Brynner, that many of the details of Brynner's early life became clear. Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor, and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German and Russian descent. He was born in their home town of Vladivostok on 11 July 1920 and named Yuli after his grandfather, Jules Bryner. When Yuli's father abandoned the family, his mother took him and his sister Vera to Harbin, Manchuria, where they attended a YMCA school. In 1934 Yuli's mother took her children to Paris. Her son was sent to the exclusive Lycée Moncelle, but his attendance was spotty. He dropped out and became a musician, playing guitar in the nightclubs among the Russian gypsies who gave him his first real sense of family. He met luminaries such as Jean Cocteau and became an apprentice at the Theatre des Mathurins. He worked as a trapeze artist with the famed Cirque d'Hiver company. He traveled to the U.S. in 1941 to study with acting teacher Michael Chekhov and toured the country with Chekhov's theatrical troupe. That same year, he debuted in New York as Fabian in "Twelfth Night" (billed as Youl Bryner). After working in a very early TV series, Mr. Jones and His Neighbors (1944), he played on Broadway in "Lute Song" with Mary Martin, winning awards and mild acclaim. He and his wife, actress Virginia Gilmore, starred in the first TV talk show, Mr. and Mrs. (1948). Brynner then joined CBS as a television director. He made his film debut in Port of New York (1949). Two years later Mary Martin recommended him for the part he would forever be known for: the King in Richard Rodgers' and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "The King and I". Brynner became an immediate sensation in the role, repeating it for film (The King and I (1956)) and winning the Oscar for Best Actor. For the next two decades, he maintained a starring film career despite the exotic nature of his persona, performing in a wide range of roles from Egyptian pharaohs to Western gunfighters, almost all with the same shaved head and indefinable accent. In the 1970s he returned to the role that had made him a star, and spent most of the rest of his life touring the world in "The King and I". When he developed lung cancer in the mid 1980s, he left a powerful public service announcement denouncing smoking as the cause, for broadcast after his death. The cancer and its complications, after a long illness, ended his life. Brynner was cremated and his ashes buried in a remote part of France, on the grounds of the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Bois Aubry, a short distance outside the village of Luzé. He remains one of the most fascinating, unusual and beloved stars of his time. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver < [contact link]> Spouse (4) Kathy Lee (4 April 1983 - 10 October 1985) ( his death) Jacqueline Thion de La Chaume (23 September 1971 - 1983 Divorced) ( 2 children) Doris Kleiner (31 March 1960 - 1967 Divorced) ( 1 child) Virginia Gilmore (6 September 1944 - 26 March 1960 Divorced) ( 1 child) Had one son with his first wife, Virginia Gilmore: Yul "Rock" Brynner II (born December 23, 1946). Daughter Lark Brynner (born 1958) was born out of wedlock. She was raised by her mother, German actress Frances Martin. Had one daughter with his second wife, Doris Kleiner: Victoria Brynner (born November 1962 in Switzerland). 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). He actually was buried in the Orthodox cemetery Saint-Michel-du-Bois-Aubry of Luzé, a village 55km from Tours in Touraine, France. His paternal grandfather, Julius Bryner, was of Swiss-German origin (Julius was the son of Johannes Bruner and Marie Huber Von Windisch). His paternal grandmother, Natalya Iosifovna Kurkutova, was Russian, from Irkutsk, and was said to be of part Mongolian/Buryat ancestry. His maternal grandparents, Dmitriy Evgrafovich Blagovidov and Anna Timofeevna Kireeva, were also Russian, from Penza. He was an accomplished photographer. He took many photos on the sets of the various projects he worked on over the years. 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 weightlifting program because he did not want to be physically overshadowed by 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). 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'". He was the only actor to appear in both The Magnificent Seven (1960) and its first sequel, Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966). Apprentice of Michael Chekhov. Married Doris Kleiner on the set during shooting of The Magnificent Seven (1960). Is one of only nine 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)), Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses (1968)) and Viola Davis (Fences (2016)). He badly wanted to play the title role in Spartacus (1960) and the role of Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). Daughter Victoria Brynner is a successful businesswoman who founded her own company Stardust Visions and Stardust Celebrities in Los Angeles (1992). When he got the offer to star in "The King and I" on Broadway, he 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. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's 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 (I) suggested Brynner to them for the role. Brynner. In rehearsals, at his first meeting with costume designer Irene Sharaff, he had only a fringe of curly hair. He asked Sharaff what he was to do about it. When she told him to shave it, he was horrified and refused, convinced he would look terrible. During out-of-town tryouts in New Haven, CT (February 27, 1951), Sharaff told Rodgers and Hammerstein and director John Van Druten, "Brynner should be bald!" Ordered to shave his head, he gave in, shaving off his long curly black hair and putting dark stage make-up on his shaved head. The effect was so well received that it became his trademark. He 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 Brynner and his 4,625th performance of the role. He died less than four months later, on October 10, 1985. Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Blvd. on February 8, 1960. Actively sought the role of Grigori Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). However, Tom Baker was cast. Began his acting career in France, and spoke fluent French. In January 1985, while dying of lung cancer, he insisted on filming a television commercial, advising everyone, "Now that I'm gone, I tell you don't smoke . . . " The commercial had a profound affect on viewing audiences, since it was released after his death. His decision to share what killed him gained him a whole new generation of fans who respected and admired him for this unforgettable gesture.