The U.S. hardcover edition, signed by the author, is available here.
Publishers Weekly - Starred Review:
A four-generation family saga—featuring one of the world’s sexiest movie stars—would usually signal a fluffy beach read, but the story of the Brynner patriarchs is too historically complex and fascinating to fall into that genre. Great-grandson Rock Brynner opens by introducing Swiss-born Jules, who started in the import-export business out of Shanghai and then Yokohama, before establishing himself in Vladivostok in the 1870s. Jules took advantage of the city’s Wild West character and the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to expand from shipping into mining and forestry, and created an extraordinary commercial empire. It was Jules’s son Boris who had to negotiate the socialization of the family businesses in the newly created Soviet Union. Boris’s émigré son Yul learned show business in France before turning his much-touted Genghis Khan genes—and his Russian method acting—into American box office gold. Yul’s American son Rock concludes the volume with his own adventures in the counterculture before becoming an academic. The odyssey comes full circle in 2003 when the city of Vladivostok invites Rock to come and celebrate as a native son. An enthralling family chronicle, the Brynner perspective on Far East Russian history should be important for Pacific Rim historians as well. 165 Photos.
Library Journal:
Brynner can truly be described as a Renaissance man accomplished in many fields, from street clown and actor to band manager, pilot, historian, professor, and writer. In this personal yet meticulous work, he chronicles the lives of four generations of his own family, beginning with his great-grandfather, Jules Bryner, a Swiss who eventually settled in Vladivostok, where he was greatly responsible for establishing its importance in the Russian Far East. Next, he covers Jules’s son Boris, a major industrialist, and then Boris’s son, the author’s father, actor Yul Brynner. He concludes, full circle, with his own odyssey to Vladivostok in 2003. Brynner expertly paints each era in the context of the family history, showing how each man made his own mark upon his generation, whether through direct involvement in the Russo-Japanese War or as an exemplar of Hollywood glamour. Brynner refers to many well-known celebrities, and he isn’t shy about revealing previously unknown stories involving Sammy Davis Jr., Marlene Dietrich, and Sam Giancana. Illustrated with over 150 photographs, this book can stand by itself as a fascinating tale of a fascinating family.
"The enthralling story, across four generations, of a singular dynasty of fathers and sons, all of them gifted, dynamic, complicated and driven, all of them firmly embedded in the history of their times. . . . They include the restless, brilliant, and ambitious Yul Brynner, whose odyssey from the Russian Far East to Paris, New York and Hollywood is chronicled with the flair of a born raconteur, the professional historian’s command of facts, and the memoirist’s firsthand knowledge of intimate family lore. His son, Rock Brynner, brings this dazzling saga full circle with his adoption by the people of Vladivostok."
— Elizabeth Frank, novelist and Pulitzer-prize winning biographer
"Empire and Odyssey is the Forsyte Saga of the Russian diaspora, an absorbing story of an extraordinary family adapting to changing times, of ambition, talent, egotism, loyalty, estrangement, and betrayal, set against a tumultuous background of imperial expansion, war, revolution, exile, and homecoming. It captures the characters Jules, Boris, and Yul with candor, humor, and poignancy. Rock Brynner’s curiosity and sensibilities, cultivated no doubt over the course of personal triumphs and travails, have attuned him to lyrical, tragic, ironic, and comic melodies, so that he can feel — and convey — the burden of Russia’s past, of Russia’s tragedies."
— Prof. John J. Stephan, author, The Russian Far East: A History
"Yul Brynner was among the most powerful actors of all time. Rock Brynner is one of the most exhilarating story-tellers I have ever read."
— James Earl Jones
"Dr. Rock Brynner is a gentleman and a scholar, and during my championship years he was always a true friend and reliable bodyguard."
— Muhammad Ali
In 1875, Swiss-born Jules Bryner, then twenty-six, moved his shipping company from Yokohama, Japan to the new Russian naval port named "Ruler of the East" or "Vladivostok," where he joined with other European entrepreneurs and bankers to build a thoroughly Western port city in Asia. It was there that his grandson, my father Yul Brynner, was born.
The Okean Cinema, heart of the Festival
. . . overlooking the beach . . .
. . . where children dive from the statue of a mermaid, with the schooner Nadezhda on the horizon.
I was amazed to find my image printed on all the movie tickets. As the only guest to have attended all six years, I have become the Festival's talisman. . .
Presenting the Yul Brynner Award for Most Promising young actor to Fernando Pena of Mexico.
Alexander Doluda, my Russian "brother in arms," has been the main force behind the Festival since its inception.
With Doluda and Kongar-al Ondor, the brilliant Tuvan "throat singer."
With Director Adrian Belic, Public Affairs Officer Bridget Gersten of the U.S. Consulate, and Sasha Doluda.
Australian film-maker Kasimir Burgess and Quebecoise director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
With U.S. Consul General in Vladivostok, Tom and Kathy Armbruster, and Kongar with his wife.
The Consulate organized and sponsored my lecture tour. . .
. . .in Vladivostok.
"Global Problems Demand International Solutions" was the lecture I gave at. . .
. . .The Institute for International Relations at the Far East National University, established as The Oriental Institute in 1899 by Jules Bryner.
"The Social and Political Impact of Rock 'n' Roll on World Culture, 1955-1985" at the Far East National University School of Language and Literature
The Naval Honor Guard for the Festival opening
Russian folksingers greeting the dignitaries.
Vladivostok from Amur Bay. . .
. . . and from the air
The city of 700,000, which my great-grandfather, Jules Bryner, helped to establish in the 1870s, and where my father, Yul Brynner, was born in 1920. As a pilot, I especially like this view of Amur Bay in the foreground and the "Golden Horn" inlet behind it.
A three-masted schooner like this first brought Jules Bryner to Vladivostok in the 1870s. . .
I've known Art Troitsky since the 1990s, when he became one of the leading intellectual and artistic forces in Russia. He brought his modern Russian art collection to Vladivostok for the Festival.
photo courtesy Nick Holdsworth
The tomb of Jules Bryner
At the Bryner "honeymoon cottage"
photo courtesy Nick Holdsworth
Ku-Ling Siegel filming documentary at the cottage on Sidemy beach where my great-grandparents Jules and Natalya Bryner stayed in 1882, as did my grandparents Boris and Marousia Bryner in 1916.
Regatta in Amur Bay
"Nature Without Borders" ("Природа без границ")Ecological Conference, Vladivostok, June 7-9, 2006
I attended the conference representing Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based group that funds grass-roots Russian NGOs addressing environmental problems in the Primorye Region.
The Ho Chi Minh Memorial near Metro Akademicheskaya, where I stayed with dear friends.
Washington, D.C., April 18th, 2006
Empire and Odyssey Book Launch
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies I was introduced by Dr. Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute, along with my friend and discussant, Prof. Birgitta Ingemanson of Washington State University, a leading scholar of the Russian Far East.
Alexander SkliarSasha Skliar is one of the most beloved songwriters and singers in Russia today, performing solo and with his rock band, Va Bank. In 2003 he came to Vladivostok to meet me, and to recount how in the 1980s - after hearing my father's recording of gypsy songs - he had given up his career as a Soviet diplomat (stationed in North Korea) to become a musician. Since then I have visited him in Moscow. He also wrote the preface to my first book published in Russian.
YUL BRYNNER SINGS RUSSIAN GYPSY SONG
This was my father's signature song in the Paris clubs where he performed in the 1930s with Aliosha Dimitrievitch, and in New York in the 1940s. "Okonchen Poot," is Russian, though the dialect is distinctly Tsigani (Gypsy). Yul auditioned for "The King and I" with this song im 1950. It is very popular in Vladivostok - and all across Russia - today. To listen, RIGHT-CLICK on the link below this paragraph and then select "OPEN."
Yul with Aliosha Dimitrievitch in 1965
Aliosha's Signature Song, "Matoushka"
It's like no other song I've ever heard.
Reception at Residence of U.S. Consul GeneralI have known Consul General John Mark Pommersheim and his delightful wife Natalya for two years. Their guests included many of my closest Vladivostok friends from academia, diplomacy, and entertainment.
VLADIVOSTOK LECTURES
In Vladivostok I participated in a major conference on "Tolerance," prepared by students from all seven of the city's universities. The conference was organized by the U.S. Consulate and the Far East State Technical University (FESTU), established by Jules Bryner and his associates in 1899. The event was held at the Pushkin Theatre, which is under the stewardship of FESTU.
Speech on "Tolerance" at ConferenceWith Rector Turmov of FESTU, Consul General Pommersheim, interpreter Victor Egupov, the Rector of the University of Economy and Services; and Dan Hastings, the Consulate's Public Affairs Officer who had planned the conference and my tour -- with the indispensable help of Lyudmila Kourzenko.
Marine State UniversityThere I lectured on the social impact of rock 'n' roll. Many of the students are also marine cadets.
DVGU Department of Foreign Languages and Literature"Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King." How the idea of civil disobedience and passive resistance traveled from Massachusetts in the 1840s to Russia in the 1890s to South Africa and India in the early 1900s to Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s.
DVGU Institute of HistoryThe lecture was entitled "International Problems Require International Solutions: Epidemics, Ecology, Trade and Terrorism."
Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law
Graduate students in International Relations
Academy Lecture
Khabarovsk State MuseumLecture: "The History of the Brynners in Far East Russia."
Lectures in NakhodkaNakhodka is a port city four hours' drive east of Vladivostok on icy roads. Above is the Nakhodka branch of Vladivostok's University of Economics and Services.
Nakhodka University students and professors
The Nakhodka Cultural Society
V L A D I V O S T O K
A U T U M N 2005
Vladivostok Station
Last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway In 1891, Jules joined the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, in laying the cornerstone for this station.
The broad streets of the old city Built on a narrow peninsula, Vladivostok is surrounded by two bays.
Vladivostok became home to 750,000 residents.
The Bryner Residence The curved,
Art Nouveau peak of the Bryner Residence was very daring when Jules had the house designed in 1910, and still looks modern today. Jules built it, Boris lived in it, and in 1920 Yul was born there. Eighty years after my family was forced to flee Stalin,I was welcomed there warmly. Now it is a city landmark.
Twenty years after Yul's death, a plaque was unveiled on the house where he was born.
My dad died before anyone could foresee the end of the Soviet era. We could never have dreamed that I would commemorate his birth in Vladivostok.
The Bryner Residence (red arrow on left) overlooks the main square and port of Vladivostok.
Some years after leaving Vladivostok, Yul joined the circus in Paris as a trapeze acrobat.
Broadway, 1951
How Yul made it by the age of thirty from his childhood in Vladivostok to stardom in
The King and I is only one part of the family epic,
Empire and Odyssey . . .
1957 Yul is the only Russian-born actor to have won the Academy Award.
With Queen Elizabeth II in 1979 Yul's last performance as King came 34 years after his first. Even authentic royalty was happy to welcome him in their ranks.
1984 This was at the opening of the New York Hard Rock Cafe in 1984, the year before my father died. I was the weekend manager, as I had been at the original London Hard Rock in 1973; Yul was an investor.
Article in the first issue of the new Vladivostok art magazine, "In (club)"
Cape Bryner, four hundred miles from Vladivostok, where Jules built his first lighthouse above the port of the Bryner Mines . . .
. . . and the Twin Rocks beneath Cape Bryner. . .
. . . appeared on Russia's national currency - the thousand-ruble note - as soon as the Soviet era ended.
"The Long-term Social and Political Impact of Hurricane Katrina" . . .
. . . a lecture I gave at the University of Economics and Services. My interpreter was my friend and esteemed scholar Evgenia Terekhova.
With Valery Ysnkovsky, my uncle, in 2005Strictly speaking, he is the nephew of my great-grandmother. I visited Valery, now 95, strong and sharp-minded, at his home in Vladimir, three hours from Moscow.
Valery in the 1930s. . .
. . . when he was a great tiger hunter in Russia, China, Manchuria, Mongolia, as well as North Korea, where his father, Yuri, and Yul's father, Boris, created a Russian hunting lodge.
Yul on a tiger hunt in North Korea in 1937 . . . where my father, then 17, went hunting with his father, Boris, and with Valery's father, Yuri Yankovsky, renowned in the late 1800s as "the greatest tiger hunter in the world."
St. Basil's at night
Red Square at night During the "white nights" of midsummer, the sky stays bright over Moscow and St. Petersburg.
St. Basil's, Red Square, and the Kremlin at dawn
Capitalism in Red SquareBeside the Kremlin, Christian Dior has settled in directly opposite Lenin's tomb. Meanwhile, Hard Rock t-shirts are sold by vendors on the spot where Soviet nuclear missiles used to be displayed. The t-shirts are knock-offs; the authentic Moscow Hard Rock Cafe opened in 2003 in the Arbat, six blocks from the Kremlin.
