HOW BRODERICK GETS IN GEAR
Dwho has played self-made business magnate Victor Newman on “The Young and the Restless” since 1980, has just released a memoir entitled “I’ll Be Damned.” In it, the 75-year-old grandfather (photo) reveals that his father was a member of the Nazi party. Braeden, born Hans Gudegast in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, says he had no idea about the Holocaust until he came to the United States in 1959 and saw a documentary in Los Angeles. His father died when he was 12 and he never got a chance to ask him about Nazism. He says a neighbor told him his dad had misgivings about Hitler in 1939. Ever since then he has been on a mission to repair German-Jewish relations by playing on the Jewish-American soccer team the Maccabees, visiting Auschwitz with Holocaust survivors, and going to Israel several times. He ruefully admits he has Adolf Hitler to thank for his lengthy Hollywood career — because he got his start playing World War II German officers on ’60s TV shows.
Braeden does not see parallels between Hitler and President but is no fan of the administration.
“It is an entirely different situation,” he told the Daily News, “although Trump says he’s going to make America great again. Where has that idiot been? America is great and has always been great and any immigrant will tell you that.
“He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. What the hell does he know about it? This is a great country. Obviously there’s always room for improvement, but for him to have the audacity to say, ‘I’m going to make this country great again and things are terrible.’ Who the hell is he? It’s so much bulls--- he’s selling people.” Braeden — who got his start as Hans Dietrich on TV’s war drama “The Rat Patrol” and also played doomed tycoon John Jacob Astor IV in “Titanic” — is furious at Trump’s enablers as well.
“The Republican Congress under has been the most deleterious thing in America,” he opines. “If you want to clear out the swamp, you clear out the Republican Congress. They have blocked every decent thing. It infuriates me just to think about it.” Like a true New Yorker, (inset) likes to use public transport to get to the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, where he’s starring in “Evening at the Talk House.” “I take the subway to 42nd St. and Broadway and then Citi Bike to the West Side,” he told Confidential at the play’s opening party. “I also walk. I like to get a little blood going before a play and I run lines in my head.” Also at the Off-Broadway bash were Broderick’s wife, along with and