MONDAY
E-mail a friendEric Braeden
airdate January 13, 2009
Known for his long-running role on CBS' The Young and the Restless, Emmy-winning actor Eric Braeden also performs on stage and in films, including the indie Western, The Man Who Came Back—which he also exec produced. Born in Germany, he immigrated to the U.S. as a teen, became a naturalized citizen during college and holds dual citizenship. In '89, Braeden was the only actor on the then-newly-formed German American Advisory Board and has been honored by the German and Israeli governments for his efforts in advancing German-Jewish dialogue.
Emmy-winning actor, who grew up in Germany, discusses Middle East policy, particularly Israeli-Palestinian relations. (1:34)
Full interview. (10:20)
Eric Braeden
Tavis: Eric Braeden is the longtime star, of course, of daytime's number one drama "The Young and the Restless." He's also a dedicated humanitarian and activist who cofounded the German-American Cultural Society. He serves as both executive producer and star for his latest project, "The Man Who Came Back." The western thriller is now available on DVD. Here now, a scene from "The Man Who Came Back."
[Clip]
Tavis: Who knew Eric Braeden is a western fan?
Eric Braeden: I grew up in Germany. We saw nothing but westerns after the war. I loved them. And there were a series of novels written about the American West that we loved, and it promised everything wide open and adventure and romance and what have you.
Tavis: Tell me more about as a child what -- beyond the fact is what you were seeing most of, what do you like about the way westerns are written, the way they're structured, the way they take shape?
Braeden: Well, most westerns are very, very simple, I think, in their structure, and I was attracted to this one because of the element of revenge, and that I understand very easily and very well.
Tavis: Not you. (Laughter.)
Braeden: Well, if you grew up under the circumstances under which I grew up, you understand that. So I have a visceral understanding of that, and that is what attracted me to this film, to this subject. And then I asked them to give an historic context, and the historic context is Reconstruction in the South, which as we know was a brutal time.
And the Ku Klux Klan had just been established in the 1860s, late 1860s, after the Civil War, and they wreaked havoc in the South very often. And the so-called Freedom Men weren't really free. The economic pressure put on them. For example, they had some laws in the South saying that if you owed money to the company store you were not free.
You were nominally free; you were no longer a slave, but you were forever indentured to whoever you worked for if you owed money to the company store. And we're talking, in this film, about a strike over -- in no time, the 10,000 members, union members in the South in the 1870s.
And they struck for a dollar a day instead of getting 75 cents a day, and they wanted to be paid in cash, not in scrip, which is what plantation owners issued them. And so they had them in bondage forever then, economically. So they perpetuated slavery by economic means.
Tavis: We've hung out a few times here. I wonder to what extent your having grown up in Germany impacts your being a humanitarian, which impacts your doing a movie like this but wanting to historicize it, impacts your wanting to tell that raw part of the story. You see what I'm getting at here?
Braeden: Very good question, and a very justified question. And yes, it has to do with my background, it has to do with having lived in this town now since 1960 and having essentially heard nothing but dreadful stories about Germany and Germans as it pertained to a 12-year period in our history.
So are you right in assuming -- and I think that is what you're leading up to -- that some of that played a role in my saying, "I want to depict some of American history. They need to know that." We need to obviously know about the Nazi era, obviously, but we need to know about 300 years of American history, which was very often bloody and very segregationist, primarily to African-Americans, as you know.
And that story needs to be told. We all need to learn from that to now realize how far we have come with the election of Obama, which is extraordinary. People sometimes -- I came here in 1959. I took the Greyhound bus from New York to Galveston, Texas, to the South, and I thought I had landed in a full democracy and here I see signs for Whites only, for Coloreds only, and the separation was stark.
It was -- there was no question about it. The dichotomy was absolutely blatant, so the changes I've seen in this country in the last 50 years have been enormous. So I basically think there's hope for mankind, but has the experience of growing up during the war and after the war in Germany formed me? You bet. Absolutely.
Tavis: I could argue you this -- argue you on this -- till the cows come home if I wanted to. We could sit here and go back and forth. You can say hope and I can say the Middle East. You could say hope and I can say Ireland. You can say hope and I -- we could do this all day long. Tell me why, with all this happening around us, when people are so fearful because there are so many dreadful things happening in the world, that you remain hopeful.
Braeden: When you bring up the Middle East, obviously, it seems almost hopeless. I don't know how we will extricate ourselves from that quagmire. I can only observe from the outside and I can only tell you that as a German of my generation it is -- I feel it a moral imperative to support Israel because I don't think Israel would have existed in the state that it exists now without the Holocaust, without the excesses of anti-Semitism in Germany.
So as a German I feel a moral imperative to support Israel. Do I understand the Palestinian plight? Absolutely. It's an extraordinarily difficult situation. Do I understand the fear of Jews in Israel to not grant the right of return because they fear that then within a short period of time the Palestinians would constitute the majority in their country?
So do I understand the visceral fear on the part of Jews in Israel to say we need a state of our own after the experiences of anti-Semitism in Europe? You bet. And not only the anti-Semitism in Europe but in other parts of the world, obviously, including in America.
So I understand all that, but I also have to be blind not to understand the plight of the Palestinians. It's just a very difficult question. And I hope that Obama is -- if anyone can deal with it, I think he can.
Tavis: Just to circle back to the movie, the western, "The Man Who Came Back," westerns in their heyday speak to an America -- a different kind of America. Some would say the good old days, and that depends on who you are, I guess, but the good old days when things were certainly more simple. The quagmires, to use your word, that we find ourselves in now weren't the same.
So is there -- is now -- how might I put this? Is now a good season for a comeback for westerns? Are there things we can learn and be comforted by where westerns are concerned?
Braeden: Apparently they sell well, but I think there's always -- (laughter).
Tavis: I guess so. I figured that, because you wouldn't be doing it otherwise, yeah.
Braeden: There's always a -- I think there's a hankering for times past, and the world was indeed simpler within the framework of the old westerns, although the reality of that was sometimes very tough -- very tough. The conquest of the American West, my god, was that tough, and was that unfair to some people. The American Indians, obviously.
But the hardships suffered by people who had the guts to leave the eastern seaboard and move west, or the immigrants who came here from Europe and moved west, is extraordinary. I think it's still an innocent time, in a sense, depending upon how you look at it -- from what perspective you look at it.
Tavis: Fair enough. It's amazing, as I think about it and listen to him now, when you think of Eric Braeden, you think of Victor Newman, I think -- at least I think most principally of that voice. His acting skills, no doubt about that, but that voice. It's amazing with that voice he hasn't done a slew of these western movies. Doesn't he have the right voice for a western? (Laughs.) He's got the right sound for a cowboy.
Anyway, the movie, produced and starred in by Eric Braeden, is called "The Man Who Came Back," one of the top-selling DVDs so you might want to add it to your DVD collection. Eric, nice to have you back on, and have a great year, man.
Braeden: Thank you, my man.
Tavis: Good to see you.
Braeden: Tavis, I've enjoyed your show enormously.
Tavis: I appreciate having you on.
Braeden: All right? And good luck, and 2009 is going to be a great year.
Tavis: I hope so, for both of us.
Braeden: You bet.
Tavis: For both of us.
Braeden: You bet.
Back to January 13, 2009