Yul Brynner actually was Asian by birth (he was born on the island of Sakhalin, near Russia), so his playing the King wasn't as much of an act of whiteface as you think.
Perhaps a little unfair to single out poor old Yul, but I did try and find everyone who had ever played the part (which took far longer than I had hoped) and I couldn't find one Thai actor who had been cast. I suspect that it's as much to do with the fictional portrayal as much as anything else. I don't think any Thai actors want to go near it.
“Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor, and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German and Russian descent.”
Yul Brynner actually was Asian by birth (he was born on the island of Sakhalin, near Russia), so his playing the King wasn't as much of an act of whiteface as you think.
Perhaps a little unfair to single out poor old Yul, but I did try and find everyone who had ever played the part (which took far longer than I had hoped) and I couldn't find one Thai actor who had been cast. I suspect that it's as much to do with the fictional portrayal as much as anything else. I don't think any Thai actors want to go near it.
It's not quite Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, granted.
Yul Brynner was born in Vladivostok, Russia.
“Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor, and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German and Russian descent.”
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0000989/bio/#:~:text=Yul%20sometimes%20claimed%20to%20be,Swiss%2DGerman%20and%20Russian%20descent.