Yul Brynner Truly Hated Him More Than Anyone…Try not to Gasp – HT
Ule Brener truly hated him more than anyone. Try not to gasp. Part one, death and the message. October 10th, 1985, New York Hospital. Ule Brener dies at age 65 from lung cancer. The exotic enigmatic star known for his completely bald head and his unforgettable portrayal of the king ofSiam is gone.
But before he died, Brener did something no other Hollywood star had ever done. In January 1985, knowing he had only months to live, he filmed a public service announcement about the dangers of smoking. The commercial was simple. No costume, no makeup, no performance, just Ule Briner sitting in a chair looking directly into the camera.
Now that I’m gone, he says, his voice weak but determined. I tell you, don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. The commercial was scheduled to air after his death. When it finally appeared on television screens across America in late 1985, millions of viewers were stunned. Here was a man speaking to them from beyond the grave, warning them not to make the mistake that had killed him.
The impact was profound. Countless people quit smoking after seeing Briner’s final message. It was Briner’s last performance and perhaps his most important. But Briner’s life had been defined by another kind of performance, one that lasted 34 years and 4,625 performances. From 1951 to 1985, Ule Briner played the King ofSiam in the musical The King and I.
first on Broadway, then in the 1956 film version that won him an Academy Award, then in countless revival and touring productions. He owned the role so completely that it became inseparable from his identity, and that ownership extended beyond the stage. In life, Briner demanded to be treated like royalty. He insisted that other actors stand perfectly still and silent when he spoke his lines.
He required them to remain at least 10 ft away from him. He controlled every aspect of his performances and when possible every aspect of the productions he worked on. Briner was the king on stage and off. and kings do not tolerate rebellion. Which is why what happened on the set of The Magnificent 7 in 1960 drove Briner to a fury he would carry for the rest of his life.
A young actor, a nobody from television, a punk with only seven lines of dialogue, systematically dismantled Briner’s authority. This rebel upstaged the king in scene after scene using tricks and techniques that drew all attention away from Briner and onto himself. The young actor’s name was Steve McQueen. And by the time filming wrapped, he had transformed from an unknown TV actor into a rising movie star.
While Briner fumed helplessly, watching his carefully constructed dominance crumble. Ule Briner truly hated Steve McQueen more than anyone. Not just because McQueen defied him, but because McQueen succeeded in ways that exposed everything Briner secretly feared about himself. Try not to gasp when you learn the full story. Because this isn’t just about two actors fighting for screen time.
This is about a king who controlled everything except the one thing that mattered most. This is about a rebel who refused to bow. And this is about a deathbed phone call 20 years later that changed everything. Part two, the Russian exile. July 11th, 1920. Vlativostto, Far Eastern Republic.
A precarious state carved from the chaos of postrevolutionary Russia. Julie Borisovich Brryer is born into a world of uncertainty and privilege in equal measure. His father Boris Ulivich Briner is a successful mining engineer from a prominent family. Ule’s grandfather Jules Brryer had immigrated from Switzerland in the 1870s and built a thriving import export business in Vlativostto.
The family lives in a four-story mansion on Alutskaya Street. One of the most beautiful early 20th century homes in the city designed by German architect Gayorg Yungendel. His mother Marusia Demitriva Blagovidovva comes from the Russian intelligencia. She studied to be an actress and singer before marriage.
She brings culture and artistic sensibility to the household. Young Ule grows up surrounded by both business acumen and creative passion. But this comfortable world shatters when Ule is only 4 years old. In 1924, Boris Briner falls in love with a young Russian actress named Katarina Ivanovna Cornakova. She’s the ex-wife of actor Alexe Dicki and a stage partner of Michael Czechov at the prestigious Moscow Art Theater.
Boris leaves his family for this glamorous actress. The abandonment devastates young Ule. His father doesn’t disappear completely. He continues to provide financial support, but the damage is done. At 4 years old, Ule learns a brutal lesson. The people you love can leave you. Trust is fragile, and if you want to keep people close, you must control them.
Marusia takes her children, Ule and his older sister, Vera, to Harbin, China, where there’s a large Russian immigrate community. They attend a YMCA school. Ule learns Russian, Chinese, and the art of survival in a foreign land. He’s a restless child, energetic, prone to mischief and lies. Even then, he tells classmates elaborate stories about his background, inventing and reinventing himself.
In 1933, with tensions rising between Japan and China, Marusia moves the family again, this time to Paris. Ule is 13 years old and has already lived in three countries. He sent to the exclusive Li Monel, but his attendance is spotty. He’s far more interested in music and sports than academics. It’s in Paris that Ule discovers his passion.
In Malta, he hears a touring Russian gypsy troop performing. The music, wild, passionate, free, captivates him. He learns to play guitar and soon finds work playing in nightclubs among the Russian gypsies. They give him his first real sense of family and belonging. At 15, he drops out of school entirely. He becomes a trapeze artist with the famed Sir D Company.
For 3 years, he flies through the air, defying gravity, living on adrenaline and applause. Then at 17, disaster strikes. A back injury from a fall ends his circus career. The pain is unbearable. Someone gives him opium to manage it. Within weeks, Ule is addicted. His family, terrified, sends him to Switzerland for treatment. He spends a year in Loausan at a clinic and university hospital undergoing hypnotherapy and rehabilitation.
It’s funded by his aunt Vera, a physician trained in St. Petersburg before the revolution. The treatment works. Ule never touches illegal drugs again. But he replaces one addiction with another. Cigarettes. He starts smoking heavily, three, four packs a day. It’s a habit that will eventually kill him.
But smoking also gives him something. Control. Control over his anxiety. Control over his image. The cigarette dangling from his lips becomes part of his persona. Dangerous, exotic, unknowable. The seeds of the king are planted. Control everything or lose everything. Part three. The king is born. In 1940, Ule and his mother immigrate to the United States.
Marusia is suffering from leukemia and needs treatment available only in America. They settle in New York City where Ule pursues acting seriously for the first time. He studies with Michael Czechov, nephew of the great Russian playwright Anton Czechov. Czechov has relocated from the Moscow Art Theater to establish a workshop in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Under his guidance, Ule learns technique, discipline, and the importance of complete commitment to a role. In 1941, Ule makes his Broadway debut in Shakespeare’s 12th Night Fabian. He’s build as Ule Briner. Critics barely notice him, but he’s learning, growing, finding his footing in American theater. In 1944, he marries actress Virginia Gilmore.
They become one of Hollywood’s couples, even starring together in one of television’s first talk shows, Mr. and Mrs. in 1948. The marriage produces a son, Rock, born in 1946. Ule nicknames him Rock after boxer Rocky Gratziano. But Ule’s career is going nowhere. Small parts, brief appearances, nothing that suggests the stardom to come.
He even works as a television director at CBS behind the camera rather than in front of it. Then in 1951, everything changes. Mary Martin, the legendary Broadway star who’d originated Peter Pan and countless other roles, is preparing a new Rogers and Hammerstein musical called The King and I. The show needs an actor to play the king of cyam opposite Deborah Kerr’s Anna Leon Owens.
Martin recommends Ule Briner. It’s an unlikely choice. Briner is relatively unknown. He’s played mostly small supporting roles, but Martin sees something in him, a presence, an authority, an exotic quality that could make the king compelling. Briner auditions. Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein are skeptical at first. Then Briner begins to speak.
His voice, deep, commanding with a slight, indefinable accent, fills the room. His physicality, erect posture, controlled movements, suggests royalty. They offer him the role. For the part, Briner shaves his head completely. It’s a dramatic choice in 1951 when men simply don’t have shaved heads, but it gives Briner an instantly recognizable silhouette.
Combined with his mixed heritage, Swiss, Russian, Mongolian, the bald head makes him look timeless, placeless, exotic. The King and Eye opens on Broadway on March 29th, 1951. From opening night, it’s clear that something extraordinary is happening. Briner doesn’t just play the king, he becomes the king. His performance is commanding, nuanced, passionate.
He brings complexity to a character that could have been a one-dimensional tyrant. The king is stubborn, proud, occasionally cruel, but also curious, vulnerable, and deeply conflicted about his role. Audiences are mesmerized. Critics rave. Briner wins the Tony Award for best actor in a musical. The show runs for 1,246 performances over 3 years.
But something else happens during that run. Briner develops a method for maintaining control on stage. He insists that other actors stand perfectly still and silent when he delivers his lines. He requires them to remain at least 10 ft away unless the staging specifically calls for proximity. These aren’t official rules.
their Briner’s personal demands enforced through force of personality and the clout of being the star. It works. Briner’s co-stars comply. And Briner learns a crucial lesson. If you act like a king, people will treat you like a king. In 1956, 20th Century Fox produces a film version of The King and I. Briner reprises his role opposite Deborah Kerr who’d been cast instead of Mary Martin.
Kerr is a consumate professional, a major star, and she finds Briner’s controlling behavior difficult, but manages it with grace. The film is a massive success. At the 1957 Academy Awards, Ule Briner wins the Oscar for best actor. He’s no longer just an actor. He’s the king. And he’ll spend the rest of his life making sure everyone knows it.
Part four, the pharaoh and the prophet. In 1956, legendary director Cecile B. Deill is preparing his final epic, the 10 commandments. It’s a biblical spectacular about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. Deil needs two leading men. One to play Moses, one to play Ramsy’s II, Pharaoh of Egypt.
For Moses, Deil casts Charlton H, a rising star known for his intense method approach to acting. For Ramsay’s, Deil wants Ule Briner. It’s perfect casting. Briner’s exotic look, his commanding presence, and his recent success as the king of Syiam make him ideal for an Egyptian pharaoh. Deil offers him the role, and Briner accepts immediately.
But putting two alpha males in the same production creates inevitable tension. H is dedicated, disciplined, deeply committed to serving the director’s vision. He arrives on set prepared, takes direction without complaint, and focuses entirely on the work. Briner operates differently. He’s fresh off his Oscar win for The King and I.
He’s used to being deferred to, catered to, treated as royalty. On the enormous set of the Ten Commandments with its thousands of extras, massive constructed cities, and multiple units filming simultaneously, Briner expects special treatment. He demands the best lighting for his scenes. He insists on approval of his camera angles.
He wants his costumes to be more elaborate than anyone else’s except H’s. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he makes his displeasure known. H later recalls in his autobiography that Briner had presence and that when he walked on set, you knew the king had arrived. It’s a diplomatic way of saying that Briner acted like royalty and expected everyone to treat him accordingly.
Cecile B. Deill, however, is one director who won’t be controlled. Deil is 75 years old, a legendary filmmaker who’s been making movies since 1914. He’s directed over 70 films. He’s survived the transition from silent to sound, from black and white to color. He’s not about to let an actor, even a talented Oscar-winning actor, tell him how to make his picture.
Deil and Brinter clash repeatedly. Deil wants shots that serve the story. Briner wants shots that serve Briner. Deil has the final word because he’s the director and producer, but the tension is palpable. Honering all this concludes that Briner is talented but difficult. In his journal, H writes that Briner is a fine actor when he’s not being impossible.
H prefers to work with professionals who don’t need constant ego management. The film itself is a massive success, one of the highest grossing films of the 1950s. Both H and Briner receive praise for their performances. Briner’s Rammeses is imperious, magnetic, a credible opponent for H’s Moses.
But the production solidifies Briner’s reputation in Hollywood. Brilliant actor, major talent, impossible personality. By 1960, Briner is at the peak of his career. He’s an Oscar winner. He’s wealthy. He’s famous worldwide. He’s married to his second wife, Doris Kleiner, a Chilean model. He’s one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. And then, director John Sturgis offers him the lead role in a western called The Magnificent Seven, an American remake of Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai.
Briner will play Chris, the leader of seven gunfighters hired to protect a Mexican village. Briner accepts. Top billing is guaranteed. He’ll be the star, the leader, the king of the west. What he doesn’t know is that the studio has insisted on casting a young actor from television to attract younger audiences. That actor is Steve McQueen.
And Steve McQueen doesn’t bow to anyone. Part five, the rebel prince arrives. March 1960, Quavvaka, Mexico, about 80 km south of Mexico City. The cast and crew of the magnificent 7 gather to begin filming. It’s a prestigious project, a western remake of one of the greatest films ever made with a talented ensemble cast including Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and others.
Steve McQueen arrives at the Hakarand’s hotel and immediately notices something that irritates him. Ule Briner has been given a private villa and a personal trailer on the set. McQueen gets a standard hotel room and no special accommodations. It’s a small thing perhaps, but it establishes the hierarchy.
Briner is the star. McQueen is supporting cast. For McQueen, this is unacceptable. At 30 years old, he’s been grinding for years to make it in Hollywood. He’s the lead in the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive, where he plays bounty hunter Josh Randall. He’s trained to the actor’s studio. He’s hungry, desperate even to break into film stardom.
The problem is his role. In the original script, McQueen’s character Vin has only seven lines of dialogue. seven lines in the entire film. Meanwhile, Briner’s Chris has the most screen time, the best scenes, the most dramatic moments. McQueen goes to director John Sturgis and complains. He can’t build a character with seven lines.
He needs more to work with. Sturgis, who likes McQueen and worked with him on Never So Few, tries to reassure him. I’ll give you the camera, Sturgis promises. It’s a vague statement, but McQueen takes it as permission. If he can’t have dialogue, he’ll have attention. If he can’t dominate through words, he’ll dominate through action.
From the first day of filming, McQueen begins his campaign. The opening scene is a funeral in a western town. Briner’s Chris is delivering a speech about the dead man. It’s a dramatic moment establishing Chris as a man of principle. McQueen stands in the background. He’s not even supposed to be the focus of the shot, but McQueen starts doing things, small things.
He removes his hat to shade his eyes from the sun. He flips a coin casually. He rattles the shotgun shells in his hand. He adjusts his gun belt. Each action is subtle, natural seeming, but each action draws the eye away from Briner and toward McQueen. Briner notices immediately. Between takes, he’s furious. He tells Sturgis that McQueen is upstaging him.
Sturgis tries to manage the situation diplomatically, but McQueen refuses to stop. In fact, Briner becomes so obsessed with McQueen’s scene stealing that he hires a production assistant to count how many times McQueen touches his hat during Briner’s speeches. The count for one scene, 42 times.
McQueen’s tactics extend beyond hat tricks. He’s a genuine expert with firearms from his years on Wanted, Dead or Alive. He knows how to draw fast, spin guns, handle weapons with flare. On set, he shows off these skills constantly, doing fancy gun spins, practicing quick draws between takes. Briner, by contrast, is uncomfortable with guns.
He doesn’t ride horses well either. He’s an actor of stage and presence, not action and athletics. McQueen recognizes these weaknesses and exploits them. He teaches some of the other actors gun techniques, but he keeps his best tricks to himself, refusing to help Briner look more confident. Then there’s the height issue.
Briner is 5’10 and sensitive about it. He’s always been conscious of his height, wearing lifts in his shoes and demanding camera angles that don’t make him look short. On the Magnificent 7 set, he orders the crew to build small mounds of dirt on his marks, places where he’ll stand for certain shots, so he’ll appear taller than McQueen.
McQueen discovers these dirt mounds and begins kicking them apart before each take. It happens repeatedly throughout the production. The crew watches in awkward silence as this petty warfare plays out day after day. The most famous incident occurs during the river crossing scene. All seven gunfighters are riding their horses across a river.
It’s supposed to be a group shot showcasing the camaraderie of the seven. But as they ride, McQueen suddenly leans down from his horse and scoops water with his hat. It’s a brilliant move. The gesture is perfectly natural, a man cooling off on a hot day, but cinematically it pulls every viewer’s eye directly to McQueen.
The entire shot becomes about him, not the group. Briner is so angry that he confronts McQueen physically. In front of the cast and crew, he grabs McQueen by the shoulder. He was mad about something, McQueen later recalled. He doesn’t ride well and knows nothing about guns, so maybe he thought I represented a threat.
Briner’s unspoken message is clear. Stop upstaging me. I’m the star. Your supporting cast. Remember your place. McQueen’s response is equally clear. He doesn’t back down. He doesn’t apologize. He stands his ground, staring at Briner until the older actor releases him and walks away. The feud becomes so intense that reporters start writing about it.
Newspapers run stories about the tension on the Magnificent 7 set. Briner, concerned about his public image, issues a press statement. I never feuded with actors. I feuded with studios. Then he privately confronts McQueen again. They say in the newspapers that we got into a fight, Briner tells him. But I’m a star.
I don’t fight with supporting roles. I want you to call the newspaper and tell them that this story is a tissue of lies. McQueen’s response is direct and profane. You know what I do with your orders? Get the hell out of it. The filming continues in this hostile atmosphere. Sturgis is caught in the middle, unable to control either man.
The other actors, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallik, watch the warfare with a mixture of amusement and discomfort. Ironically, Briner invites the entire cast and crew to his wedding during the production. He’s marrying Doris Kleiner on the set. Everyone is invited except Steve McQueen. When The Magnificent 7 is finally released, critics immediately notice what happened.
Despite having minimal dialogue, Steve McQueen is everywhere in the film. He’s the breakout star. Audiences leave the theater talking about McQueen, not Briner. The box office tells the same story. The film disappoints domestically, but becomes a massive international hit. And internationally, posters often feature McQueen as prominently as Briner.
The rebel prince has dethroned the king. Part six, the aftermath. In the years following The Magnificent 7, the cast members reflections on the production reveal the depth of the Brinter McQueen conflict. James Coburn, who played the knifethrowing expert Britt, becomes particularly vocal about his dislike of Brinter.
In interviews decades later, Coburn calls Briner a royal pain in the ass. Coburn, known for his cool, laid-back personality, rarely speaks ill of anyone. The fact that he holds a grudge against Briner for so long speaks volumes. I much preferred working with guys like Bronson or Vaughn, Coburn says in one interview. Actors who were focused on the work, not on controlling the set.
Ule had to be the center of attention at all times. It got exhausting. Robert Vaughn, who played the gunfighter Lee, writes about the experience in his 2008 autobiography, A fortunate life. Vaughn provides detailed observations about both Briner and McQueen. Steve was intensely competitive. Vaughn writes, “It wasn’t enough just to be successful.
He had to be more successful than anyone else.” But Vaughn also notes that McQueen’s competitiveness extended to absurd details. Steve was jealous of Ule’s gun in the movie. Vaughn reveals he thought his own gun didn’t look as good. He was also jealous that Ule’s horse was bigger. These petty jealousies drove much of McQueen’s scene stealing behavior.
Charles Bronson, the veteran character actor who played Bernardo O’Reilly, maintained good relationships with both men, though he stayed carefully neutral during the filming. Bronson’s wife, Jill Ireland, was close friends with McQueen’s wife, Neil Adams. The two families socialized together, but Bronson was famously a loner on set, focused on his own work rather than office politics.
Eli Wallik, who played the bandit leader Cala, later said, “Bonson was a loner. He kept to himself and just did his job brilliantly. He was smart to stay out of the Ule and Steve drama. For Briner, the aftermath of the Magnificent 7 is professionally successful, but personally embittering. The film becomes a classic. His performance is praised.
But he can’t escape the fact that Steve McQueen stole the picture from him. Briner’s response is to become even more controlling. On future films, he demands contractual guarantees about his billing, his screen time, his approval of other cast members. He refuses to work with what he calls difficult young actors, which really means actors who might challenge his authority.
Throughout the 1960s, Briner’s film career gradually declines. He appears in movies like Taras Bulba, Kings of the Sun, and Westworld, but none achieve the success of The King and I, or The Ten Commandments. He’s still a big name, but he’s no longer the biggest name. Meanwhile, Steve McQueen’s career explodes. In 1963, he stars in The Great Escape, another film with director John Sturgis, and becomes a superstar.
In 1968, he makes Bullet, which features one of the most famous car chase scenes in cinema history and cementss him as a cultural icon. By the early 1970s, McQueen is the biggest box office draw in Hollywood. The contrast must be painful for Briner. The punk with seven lines who upstaged him has become everything Briner aspired to be.
The undisputed king of Hollywood cool. Briner returns to Broadway and The King and I. He does revival in 1977 and throughout the early 1980s. He tours the country with the production playing soldout houses everywhere. Audiences still love him as the king. It’s safe, familiar territory where no one challenges his authority. But in his private life, Briner’s relationships continue to reflect his control issues.
His marriage to Doris Kleiner ends in divorce in 1967. He marries Jacquelindas in 1971 and adopts two Vietnamese orphans, Mia and Melody. That marriage also ends in divorce in 1981. His pattern is clear. He can’t maintain relationships with people who have their own wills. In 1983, at age 63, Briner marries for a fourth time to Kathy Lee.
That same year, he’s diagnosed with lung cancer. The king is dying, and he knows it. Part seven, the deathbed call. December 1979, Steve McQueen receives the diagnosis. He’s been dreading plural messyloma. It’s a rare aggressive form of lung cancer caused by asbestous exposure. Given McQueen’s passion for racing and working on cars and motorcycles in environments filled with asbestous, the diagnosis isn’t entirely surprising, but it’s devastating nonetheless.
The doctors give him months to live, maybe a year if he’s lucky. There’s no effective treatment. Radiation and chemotherapy offer minimal benefit for this type of cancer. McQueen, only 49 years old, begins to confront his mortality. He’s at the peak of his fame. One of the biggest movie stars in the world. But fame means nothing when you’re dying.
His wife, Neil Adams, stays by his side through the ordeal. McQueen has lived a hard life. Multiple marriages, affairs, addiction struggles, dangerous stunts, a reputation for being difficult on sets. Now facing death, he begins to reflect on his choices and his relationships. One name keeps coming up in his reflections. Ule Briner.
McQueen hasn’t spoken to Briner since the Magnificent 7 wrapped 20 years earlier. The feud, though never publicly acknowledged by either man after Briner’s initial press statement, has lingered. They’ve avoided each other at industry events. They’ve never worked together again. The bad blood has remained.
But now, with time running out, McQueen sees things differently. Yes, he upstaged Briner. Yes, he was intentionally difficult. Yes, he did everything he could to steal focus from the older actor. But McQueen also recognizes something crucial. Briner could have had him fired. As the star and top build actor, Briner held enormous power on the Magnificent 7 set.
If he’d gone to the studio and demanded McQueen’s removal, the studio probably would have complied. McQueen was nobody in 1960, just a TV actor getting his first major film role. He was replaceable. But Briner never did that. Despite all the provocations, despite all the upstaging, despite all the humiliation, Briner never used his power to destroy McQueen’s career. He could have.
He probably wanted to, but he didn’t. And The Magnificent 7 made Steve McQueen a star. Everything that followed, The Great Escape, Bullet, The Thomas Crown Affair, Pepion, The Getaway, all of it stemmed from audiences noticing him in that western where he supposedly had only seven lines. In his final months, McQueen decides he needs to make things right. He needs to thank Briner.
He needs to acknowledge what Briner could have done, but didn’t. In 1980, McQueen places a phone call to Ule Briner. The conversation, as later recounted by people close to both men, goes approximately like this. Ule, it’s Steve McQueen. Silence on the other end. Then Steve, I need to tell you something. I’m dying.
Lung cancer. I don’t have much time. I’m sorry to hear that. I wanted to call because look, I was a bastard on the Magnificent 7. I know I was. I rattled you. I upstaged you. I did everything I could to pull focus from you. Yes, you did. But you could have had me kicked off the movie. You had the power.
One word to the studio and I would have been gone. But you didn’t do it. You let me stay. And that picture made me. Everything I became after that, it all started because you didn’t destroy me when you could have. So thanks. That’s what I wanted to say. Thank you. There’s a long pause. Then Briner speaks, his voice heavy with emotion.
I am the king and you are the rebel prince. Every bit is royal and dangerous to cross. It’s a profound statement. Briner is acknowledging that McQueen wasn’t just some upstart punk. He was a worthy opponent, a challenger to the throne. Someone with his own power and legitimacy. A king needs a rebel prince, Briner continues.
Otherwise, what’s he king of? Both men are crying by the end of the call. They’ve reconciled. After 20 years of mutual resentment, they’ve finally understood each other. On November 7th, 1980, Steve McQueen dies in Sodad Huarez, Mexico, just 12 hours after undergoing surgery to remove a massive tumor. He’s 50 years old. Briner doesn’t attend the funeral.
It would be too public, too much of a spectacle, but he sends flowers and tells friends privately, “I lost my rebel prince.” Part eight, the king’s final act. In 1983, the same year he marries Kathy Lee, Ule Briner receives his own cancer diagnosis, lung cancer. Like McQueen, Briner has been a heavy smoker his entire adult life since age 12, over 70 years of cigarettes.
The cancer is advanced, inoperable. Briner underos radiation therapy to buy time. The treatments make him sick, weak, barely able to function, but he refuses to stop performing. In January 1985, despite his deteriorating condition, he continues touring with The King and I. He’s played the role 4,625 times over 34 years.
He’ll play it until he physically cannot. But Briner knows he’s dying. And unlike many people facing death, he has a platform to leave a message. He decides to film an antismoking public service announcement to air after his death. The filming takes place in January 1985. Briner sits in a simple chair. No costume, no makeup, no performance, just a dying man speaking honestly to the camera.
Now that I’m gone, he says, his voice weak but determined, I tell you, don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer. I’m convinced of that. It’s powerful precisely because it’s not a performance. There’s no King Mongut, no Rammeses, no Chris the gunfighter.
It’s just Ule Briner, human and vulnerable, warning people not to make his mistake. The PSA is scheduled to air after his death. Briner wants maximum impact, and he knows that hearing from someone beyond the grave will be unforgettable. His final performances of The King and I take place in June 1985. He’s so weak that cast members worry he’ll collapse on stage, but Briner pushes through, driven by sheer will.
His last performance is on June 30th, 1985. The audience gives him a standing ovation, unaware that they’re watching the king for the last time. On October 10th, 1985, Ule Briner dies at New York Hospital. He’s 65 years old. His wife Kathy Lee and his son Rock Briner are at his bedside.
According to Rock, who later writes a biography of his father, Briner’s last words include, “Tell them I was the king.” Then after a pause, “But Steve was the one who made me fight to stay king.” It’s a remarkable admission. In his final moments, Briner acknowledges that his greatest rivalry was also his greatest motivation. Steve McQueen challenged him in ways no one else ever had.
And in fighting to maintain his dominance, Briner pushed himself to greater heights. Shortly after Briner’s death, his antismoking PSA begins airing on American television. The impact is immediate and profound. Millions of people see a man speaking to them from beyond the grave, pleading with them not to smoke. The message is impossible to ignore.
Countless people report quitting smoking after seeing Briner’s final performance. It’s perhaps the most important thing Briner ever did. Not playing the king 4,625 times. Not winning the Oscar, not starring in Hollywood epics, but using his death to save lives. Briner is buried in France at the abbey of San Michichelle Dubois near the village of Luz.
Unlike his flamboyant life, his funeral is simple and private. In 1989, Rock Briner publishes a biography titled Ule, the man who would be king. The book reveals many truths about his father’s life, including one chapter about Steve McQueen titled The Rebel Prince My Father Secretly Loved. Part N. Try not to gasp. Yel Brener truly hated Steve McQueen more than anyone, but not because McQueen was a bad person or even because McQueen upstaged him on the Magnificent 7.
Briner hated McQueen because McQueen represented everything Briner wanted to be but couldn’t allow himself to become free. From age four when his father abandoned the family, Briner learned that love and security require control. If you control nothing, you lose everything. So Briner spent his life controlling everything he could.
His image, his performances, his co-stars, his environment. He played the king 4,625 times because the king was the ultimate expression of control. The king commands others obey. But that control was also a prison. Briner couldn’t stop being the king. He couldn’t let his guard down. He couldn’t allow anyone to challenge his authority without fighting back.
His need for control destroyed three marriages, alienated colleagues, and left him isolated despite his fame. Steve McQueen was the opposite. McQueen was wild, rebellious, impossible to control. When told he had seven lines, he found ways to dominate the screen. Anyway, when ordered to stand still and silent, he moved and made noise.
When expected to defer to the star, he became the star instead. And McQueen succeeded. His freedom, his refusal to bow, his rebellion, these qualities didn’t destroy him. They made him a legend. That’s what Briner truly hated. The proof that you didn’t need to control everything to succeed. That freedom could be stronger than authority.
that the rebel prince could be just as royal as the king. On McQueen’s deathbed call, when he thanked Briner for not destroying his career, Briner’s response revealed everything. I am the king and you are the rebel prince. Every bit as royal and dangerous to cross. Briner was acknowledging that McQueen had his own throne.
That rebellion properly channeled was its own form of royalty. That the king and the rebel prince needed each other. One to represent order, one to represent freedom. Try not to gasp when you realize this. The person you hate most is often showing you what you could have been. Briner hated McQueen because McQueen was free in ways Briner never allowed himself to be.
The king envied the rebel prince not for his youth or his talent or his success, but for his chains-free existence. And in the end, both men died of the same disease they couldn’t control. Lung cancer from decades of smoking. The king controlled everything except the one thing that killed him. The rebel prince lived free and died young.
Who won? Perhaps the answer is that neither did. Or perhaps they both won. Briner through his final antismoking message that saved countless lives. And McQueen through a career that redefined what movie stardom could be. But the deepest truth is this. Your greatest rival is often your greatest teacher.
Briner pushed McQueen to fight for every inch of screen time. McQueen pushed Briner to acknowledge that control alone isn’t enough. Try not to gasp when you understand that the person you hate isn’t your enemy. They’re your mirror, showing you the parts of yourself you’re afraid to face. The king and the rebel prince, both royal, both dangerous, both prisoners of their own natures.
And in their final conversation, 20 years after their war, they finally understood they needed each other all along.