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Eric Braeden (born Hans Jörg Gudegast on April 3, 1941) is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his role as Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol, 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. Braeden was born Hans Jörg Gudegast in Bredenbek, Germany (near Kiel), where his father was once mayor. He immigrated to the USA in 1959. In the United States, Braeden attended The University of Montana in... MORE

Eric Braeden (born Hans Jörg Gudegast on April 3, 1941) is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his role as Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol, 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. Braeden was born Hans Jörg Gudegast in Bredenbek, Germany (near Kiel), where his father was once mayor. He immigrated to the USA in 1959. In the United States, Braeden attended The University of Montana in Missoula. Braeden accumulated many TV and film credits during his first two decades in America. In 1966 he guest-starred (credited as Hans Gudegast) as Luftwaffe Major Bentz in the second season episode 28, "Day of Reckoning" of Twelve O'Clock High (TV series). He is most notably known for his role as the German Hauptmann (Captain) Hans Dietrich on the TV series The Rat Patrol (1966–1968), as well as a starring role in the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), in which he first took the stage name of Eric Braeden. Lew Wasserman of Universal Pictures told him that no one would be allowed to star LESS