For over four decades, the name Eric Braeden has been synonymous with the longest-running soap opera, The Young and the Restless. However, fans would be surprised to discover that Eric Braeden is not the soap actor’s birth name.
Eric Braeden, who was born in Germany in 1941 and moved to the United States in 1959, went by Hans-Jörg Gudegast throughout his early career. However, Braeden was forced to change his name after he was cast only as “Nazis, then bad guys” in films.
During an interview with Soap Opera Digest, Braeden recalled that changing his name was “arguably one of the hardest things” he’s ever done. Braden also revealed his father, who died when the Young and the Restless star was 12 years old, joined the Nazi Party.
Braeden said after he began acting, he was told his German name was a hindrance to his career as he would only be offered Nazi roles. Recalling the experience, Braeden said, “It just was dehumanizing!”
Eric Braeden said he decided to change his name after Lew Wasserman, who was the head of Universal Studios, asked him to do so for the film called Colossus.
Wasserman supposedly told Braeden, “No one with a German name will star in an American picture.”
Braeden noted that the name change was not easy, noting, “I’d been doing a film at that time with Raquel Welch, Burt Reynolds, and Jim Brown in Spain called 100 Rifles, and none of them wanted me to change my name.”
“But they didn’t have the same kind of needs that I did, so there you are,” Eric Braeden added.
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