Eric Braeden
Eric Braeden (born Hans Jörg Gudegast on April 3, 1939) is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his role as the dastardly, on-again, off-again villain Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless.
Gudegast was born in Kiel, Germany, the son of a Nazi Party official, and emigrated to the USA in 1960. After emigrating, he changed his name to Eric Braeden. While an American citizen, he also considers himself a loyal citizen of Germany, and holds dual citizenship. Braeden has been awarded many German civics awards.
He racked up many TV and film credits during his first two decades in America, most notably a role on the TV series The Rat Patrol (1966-1968), as well as a starring role in the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969).
In 1980, he was offered the role of self-made magnate Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless. He won a Daytime Emmy for his work in 1998. In the late 1990s, he was offered the role of Colonel John Jacob Astor IV in the (1997) movie blockbuster Titanic (1997 film) as well as a role in the movie Meet the Deedles (1998).
As per IMDB: "He was appointed, in 1987, along with Henry Kissinger, Paul Volker, Steffi Graf, Alexander Haig, and Katherine Graham, to the German-American Advisory Board, and in 1991 received the Federal Medal of Honor from the president of his native land, Germany. He married his college sweetheart Dale Russell in 1966. Their son, Christian Gudegast is a screenwriter."