A Life Less Ordinary

From his roots in war-torn Germany to a show-biz career in which he’s crossed paths with Hollywood legends (including his Titanic director, James Cameron, and Marlon Brando) and athletes (Muhammad Ali, George Foreman) — and, of course, his remarkable, decades-long run as the most powerful man in Genoa City (including the off-set feud with a co-star who tried to get him fired) — Eric Braeden leaves no stone unturned in his candid, captivating autobiography. On the eve of its February 7 release in bookstores and online, he talked about his extraordinary life with Digest.

 

- Mara Levinsky

Soap Opera Digest: It’s such a cliché to say that when I read your book, I couldn’t put it down, but it’s the truth!

Eric Braeden: That’s so nice to hear, because when you write it, and afterward [record] the audio version of it.... It gets boring, hearing myself talk! I’m very glad you found it to be interesting.

Digest: When the idea was first raised for you to write your memoirs, did you embrace it? Did you have reservations?

Braeden: I was approached many times to do it, and I was most reluctant. My wife [Dale] had asked me for a long, long time to do it, and for years I did not entertain the idea. I didn’t even know where to start, to be honest with you. I did it with Lindsay Harrison [who collaborated on the memoirs of the late Jeanne Cooper, ex-Katherine, Y&R], and she knew how to organize it and divide it up and all of that. She’d done it before; she knew what questions to ask.

Digest: I’ll Be Damned is such a perfect title for the book. Did you come up with it?

Braeden: It actually came from someone on Twitter! Someone on Twitter knew that I was writing my biography and someone said, “How about I’ll Be Damned,” because I say that a lot on the show. I said, “That’s it!”

Digest: It seems like such a daunting task to undertake, to write one’s life story. Where did you begin?

Braeden: At the very beginning, very simple. And then we started going more or less chronologically. You go back and forth, obviously, because one makes associations and a certain subject will then remind one of something that happened much later.