Old Hollywood Stars Who Were Forced to Live a Double Life

Audiences knew Yul Brynner as the commanding bald star of The King and I, The Ten Commandments, and The Magnificent Seven. His unusual appearance made him seem impossible to place, and he encouraged that mystery by giving reporters several dramatic versions of his childhood.

Brynner claimed he was Taidje Khan, born on Sakhalin Island to Mongol and Roma parents. He was actually Yuliy Briner, born into a Swiss-Russian family in Vladivostok. Hollywood publicity repeated his exotic stories, and his son later helped separate family history from entertaining fiction.