René Auberjonois — actor with roots in the Russian Empire
René Auberjonois (1 June 1940, Manhattan – 8 December 2019, Los Angeles) was an American actor. He played the shapeshifter Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) and Paul Lewiston in Boston Legal (2004–2008). He won the 1970 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Coco, opposite Katharine Hepburn.
Tracing the roots — Russian Empire (Odessa, place of great-grandmother's marriage)
His mother was Princess Laure Murat; her father, Prince Michel Murat, was the son of Louis Napoléon Murat and the Russian noblewoman Eudoxia Mikhailovna Somova (1850–1924), who married in Odessa in 1873. His paternal grandfather, the painter René Auberjonois, was Swiss, born in Lausanne; his father Fernand Auberjonois was a Swiss-born foreign correspondent.
Maternal line: great-grandmother Eudoxia Mikhailovna Somova, Russian noblewoman, widow of Prince Alexander Orbeliani, married Louis Napoléon Murat in Odessa in 1873.
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Russian Empire (Odessa, place of great-grandmother's marriage). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.