I'll Be Damned: How My Young and Restless Life Led Me to America's #1 Daytime Drama

by Eric Braeden

Overview

In this startling candid and poignant memoir, the legendary Emmy Award-winning star of The Young and The Restless, America's #1 soap opera, chronicles his amazing life, from his birth in World War II Germany to his arrival in America to his rise to humanitarian and daytime superstar for the past thirty-five years.

For nearly four decades, fans have welcomed the star of television’s number-one daytime show, The Young and the Restless, into their living rooms. While they’ve come to know and love the suave Victor Newman, few truly know the man behind the character, the supremely talented Eric Braeden. I'll Be Damned is his story—a startling and uplifting true tale of war, deprivation, determination, fame, and social commitment that spans from Nazi Germany to modern Hollywood.

Braeden’s journey from a hospital basement in Kiel to the soundstages of Los Angeles has taught him more about joy, heartbreak, fear, dignity, loss, love, loneliness, exhilaration, courage, persecution, and profound responsibility to the global community than he could have hoped to learn in several lifetimes. Growing up in the years after Germany’s defeat, Braeden knew very little about the atrocities of his parents’ generation, until he arrived in America as a teenager—a discovery that horrified and transformed him. Trying to redress the wrongs of his homeland, he has dedicated his life to humanitarian work—even forming the German American Culture Society—working for decades to show the world that what we share as humans is far more important than what separates us from one another.

Told with openness, candor, humor, heart, and occasional raw vulnerability, I’ll Be Damned reveals a man committed to making the world a better, more loving place. Filled with sixteen pages of photos from his decorated life and career, I’ll Be Damned will be a treasured keepsake for Y&R fans, and is an inspiring testament to the goodness within us all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062476128
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/07/2017
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	122,558
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Since February 2, 1980, ERIC BRAEDEN has starred in the iconic television series The Young and the Restless, winning a Daytime Emmy for his role as the complex self-made billionaire Victor Newman. He has many other television credits to his name, and has starred in films, in numerous theater productions, including Shakespeare recitals, and on Broadway. Braeden has won two national championships in two different sports: In 1958, he won the German Youth Team Championship in Discus, Javelin, and Shot Put, and in 1973, he won the U.S. National Soccer Championship with the Los Angeles Maccabees.

Table of Contents

Foreword Stephen A. Smith, ESPN vii

Introduction 1

1 Beginning and Endings 5

2 Coming to America 25

3 From Parking Cars to Broadway 41

4 The Sins of the Father 59

5 Becoming Eric Braeden 83

6 Christian 105

7 My Ten Years as a Bad Guy 121

8 Meeting Victor Newman 139

9 "I'm Going to Make You Proud" 157

10 "Victor! Victor! Victor!" 167

11 The Good, The Bad, and the Mortifying 191

12 Titanic and the Man Who Came Back 205

13 But I Digress 225

14 Thank You, Y&R 241

15 In Closing … 255

Acknowledgments 263

Appendix A Thoughts on Being German 265

Appendix B The Gorbachev Speech 273

Q&A With Eric Braeden 277