Eric Braeden (born Hans-Jörg Gudegast; April 3, 1941) is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his roles as Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol, Dr. Charles Forbin in Colossus: The Forbin Project, and as John Jacob Astor IV in the 1997 film Titanic. Braeden won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Victor Newman.

Biography

In 1958 Braeden, then known as Hans Gudegast, won the German National Team Championship in Track and Field (discus, shot-put and javelin with the Rendsburger TSV). Braeden later went on to win the 1973 National Challenge Cup as a fullback with the Jewish American soccer club Maccabi Los Angeles, scoring the winning goal in the semifinal and a penalty kick in the final against Cleveland Inter. In the 1970s and '80s he could often be seen boxing at the Hoover Street Gym and the Broadway Gym in the L.A. Ghetto. Braeden is regarded as a very good tennis player. Son Christian Gudegast, is a screenwriter who wrote the film A Man Apart, which starred Vin Diesel.

Actor Clarence Williams III and former boxer Ken Norton are two of his best friends.