‘The Young and the Restless’ Star Eric Braeden Vows to Rebuild After LA Fire Loss: Here Are 5 Times Victor Newman Also Beat the Odds

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, Eric Braeden, 1990s, 1973-. © CBS /Courtesy Everett Collection
CBS / Everett Collection

Eric Braeden is best known to TV viewers as the ruthless Victor Newman on Young and the Restless. “Victor” is an appropriate name because the mustached mogul always emerges victorious — one way or the other! Braeden, too, is determined to beat the odds. A cancer survivor, the actor recently lost his Los Angeles home in the Pacific Palisades fires.

“I had done, that day, 42 pages of dialogue at CBS, and drove home,” Braeden said of the day. “Obviously, I was aware of the fires burning in the Palisades but not to the extent.” Originally, he was told that the winds were blowing in the opposite direction and his home shouldn’t be impacted. That changed quickly, and when the fires closed in, Braeden and his wife, along with others in their neighborhood, left in a panic. They packed everything they could —  “important papers … you don’t know what to grab first” — and safely evacuated.

He shared with local news station KTLA that he’s determined to rebuild his home: “We will rebuild the damn thing!” If Braeden is anything like Victor (and he is), we have no doubt that he’ll do just that.

Here’s a look at five times that Victor Newman emerged victorious!

1Mommy Dearest

Born Christian Miller to very poor parents, Victor was left at an orphanage by his mother, Cora (Dorothy McGuire) on Christmas Eve because she couldn’t afford to raise him. Talk about getting coal in your stocking! Little Christian could have let this defeat him, but, instead, he rose to the challenge. He survived and became a self-made man — a very, very wealthy one. Christian literally became a “new man” by changing his handle to Victor Newman! He was never going to let anyone ever hurt him again the way he’d been hurt as a little boy.

2Oh, Rats!


Initially, Braeden was set to have a limited run as Victor in Genoa City. Head writer Bill Bell had Victor scheduled as a short-term villain who was going to be bumped off by his adulterous wife, Julia (Meg Bennett). However, Bell soon saw long-term potential in Victor based on Braeden’s performance. He wrote that Victor would imprison Julia’s lover Michael Scott (Nick Benedict) in his basement and force him to eat rats in order to survive! Victor arranged for Michael to watch Victor and Julia reunite romantically via closed circuit monitor.

Veteran Y&R viewers never forgot about Victor’s basement – and neither did Y&R! Victor imprisoned villainess Aunt Jordan (Colleen Zenk) in his basement dungeon, complete with steel bars to keep her contained. Victor told Jordan she wouldn’t be able to cry out for help because he saw to the basement’s soundproof-ness “many years ago,” a reference to the time when he kept Michael captive.

3Drive Safely

It’s an understatement to say that Victor is a bit controlling. In fact, his own family can only take so much. After Victor manipulated his daughter Victoria’s (then, Heather Tom; now, Amelia Heinle) love life and had a physical confrontation with rival Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman) that landed the Jabot exec in the hospital, Victor decided to leave town for a while.

While driving in the Midwest, Victor’s car went off a cliff and burst into flames! Surely, he was dead? Nah, not Victor! He’d “fortunately” been carjacked and it was his assailant who died in the fiery crash. This led Victor to meet blind farm woman Hope Adams (Signy Coleman), whom he later married and had a son named Adam (Mark Grossman) with. Victor and Hope’s marriage didn’t last, but he never stopped caring about her.

4Location Is Everything!


Back in 2012, Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) was suffering from mental illness, which led her to burn down the long-standing Newman ranch. Victor and Nikki’s home was one of Y&R’s oldest and most beloved sets. For decades, viewers watched Nikki come down the staircase and elegantly walk to the front door to greet family, friends and foes. After the door opened, the camera would cut to Nikki, and then back to her visitor, and the magic began!

Alas, post-fire, Victor and Nikki were shuffled off to a set that might have been acceptable for other characters — however, it didn’t do the Y&R super-couple justice. It took over a decade, but Y&R rectified this story misfire and had Victor surprise Nikki with a new version of their original home, rebuilt on another section of his vast estate. It wasn’t just Nikki who received this gift — fans who longed for the set to return were over the moon, too. The new home was completed just in time for Victor and Nikki to host family and friends for the wedding of Devon (Bryton James) and Abby (Melissa Ordway), Victor’s daughter with Ashley (Eileen Davidson).

5“I Will Crush You”

Victor not only survived the carjacking, which brought him to Hope Adams’ farm — he also made sure that his return to Genoa City had maximum impact. Victor learned from his longtime pal Col. Douglas Austin (the late Michael Evans) that everyone believed he was dead; rather than let family and foes know that he was alive, Victor opted to delay this shocking news.

He learned that longtime rival Jack Abbott had taken advantage of Victor’s death and repositioned himself as Genoa City’s top businessman. Jack walked into Victor’s office and saw the mustached mogul’s chair turn around slowly. “You are dead! I was at your funeral,” Jack yelled out loud, hoping that he was seeing a ghost. But it wasn’t a spirit – Victor was back and he wasn’t going to let anyone dethrone him. “I’m your worst nightmare,” Victor calmly stated. Watch on YouTube now.

A few years later, Jack teamed up with Brad Carlton (Don Diamont) to try to bring Victor down. But that attempt failed, too. With his bare hands, Victor picked up a portrait of his two rivals and destroyed it, vowing to “crush” Jack and Brad.

You just can’t mess with Victor Newman. He’s going to come out on top each and every time!

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March 2023

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