Eric Braeden Said Losing His Father at a Young Age Led Him to Be ‘Defiant’: ‘I Will Not Take S*** From Anyone’
Actors often tap into their personal lives when building a character and developing a performance. In this way, their early life greatly informs the trajectory of their careers. And for Eric Braeden, the death of his father at a young age didn’t only affect his acting. It also led to a direct shift in how he decided to live his life and conduct himself in Hollywood.
Eric Braeden is a longtime star of ‘The Young and the Restless’
Braeden is easily best known for his role as Victor Newman on the popular daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. He first debuted as that iconic character in 1980 and continues to star on the show even more than four decades later. But Braeden’s career extends far past that single performance. Rather, he has a long history in both film and television dating back to the 1960s.
The German-born Braeden starred in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol and appeared on another show called Combat!. But he also popped up in countless movies over the years. He made his film debut in a 1961 movie called Operation Eichmann. And later on, he appeared in films such as the 1970 sci-fi thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project and James Cameron’s Oscar-winning epic Titanic.
How Eric Braeden changed following his father”s death
In an interview with General Hospital star Maurice Benard on his YouTube show State Of Mind with Maurice Benard, Braeden shared the effect his father’s death had on him. The actor was only 12 years old when he and his three brothers lost their father. And Braeden knew all too well the toll that loss had on him. Suddenly, he became a young man with very strong opinions and little tolerance for mistreatment.
“When you lose your father at that age, you become defiant and angry and you resent authority or arbitrarily imposed authority,” Braeden told Benard. “I will still do that with directors now. ‘What did you say? Come here. You don’t talk to me like that.’ I still do that, always have done that from early on. Not caring whether I lose a job or not. I will not take s**t from anyone. And that has served me well over the years.”
Eric Braeden stands by his approach to working with others
As Braeden said, his no-nonsense approach to working in Hollywood certainly doesn’t seem to have had a negative impact. The actor continues to be successful in the industry, and his fans are as passionate as ever. In fact, Braeden stands as one of the nation’s longest-running soap opera stars still on the air.
His co-star Melody Thomas Scott – who has played Nikki Newman since 1979 – is one of only a handful of actors who have been in their roles longer. Remarkably, Braeden only has a single Daytime Emmy Award for playing Victor Newman, which he won in 1998.
