Invitation to a Gunfighter
Invitation to a Gunfighter is a 1964 DeLuxe Color Western film directed by Richard Wilson, starring Yul Brynner and George Segal. It was based on a 1957 teleplay by Larry Klein that appeared on Playhouse 90. A lone Creole gunfighter, Jules, burdened by his own past of dealing with racism and prejudices, ends up in a town dealing with its own racist and hypocritical ignominies. Jules attempts to learn the truth about the town's real motives for hiring him, while at the same time reconciling with his own past as he attempts to force the town's white folks to accept their own hypocritical shortcomings in living with their Mexican cohabitants.
Original film poster
Yuliy Borisovich Briner, known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical The King and I, for which he won two Tony Awards, and later an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film adaptation. He played the role 4,625 times on stage and became known for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it for The King and I. Considered one of the first Russian-American film stars, he was honored with a ceremony to put his handprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in 1956, and also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Brynner in 1960
The Briner family mansion in Vladivostok, Russia, where Yul Brynner was born and lived from 1920 to 1927
Brynner's 1943 photo upon immigrating to the United States
Yul Brynner as drug dealer Paul Vicola, a supporting role in Port of New York (1949)