Eric Braeden (born Hans-Jörg Gudegast; April 3, 1941) is a German-American movie 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 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Victor Newman.