Gurgen Janibekyan is a famous Soviet and Armenian actor. He played in the theater and cinema. He was also a teacher and theater director. In 1967, Dzhanibekyan was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR, 15 years earlier he became a laureate of the Stalin Prize.
Actor Biography
Gurgen Janibekyan was born in 1897. He was born in Yerevan, while the city was called Erivan. His father was a civil servant.
Gurgen Janibekyan received his primary education in Agulis, since it was there that his father was transferred to the position of an employee in the provincial government. In 1908, after successfully graduating from high school, he entered the Russian school, but, having studied for three years, he transferred to the seminary. He graduated from it in 1917.
Participation in amateur performances
The year before, Gurgen Janibekyan was in a company that was passionate about amateur performances. He himself was absolutely indifferent to the theater, dreaming of becoming a mining engineer. But he succumbed to the influence of friends and began to participate in his first productions.
He played his first serious role in the production of Vratenas Papazyan called "The Cliff". He got the image of Grigor Aga. The performance was with some success in one of the schools in Yerevan.
In 1918, the father of Gurgen Dzhanibekyan Ter Dzhanibek died. The young man was very sad because of the loss of his parent.
Theater education
At the very beginning of the 1920s, actor Gurgen Janibekyan participated in productions of the troupe of Abelyan and Zarifyan, then he worked in Persia and Soviet Armenia.
Since 1923 he has been performing in the Armenian Theater of Tiflis on an ongoing basis. At that time, his life was closely connected with the First State Theater of Armenia, which he entered in 1924. He serves in it until death. In total, he plays more than a hundred roles, eventually begins to stage his own performances, and in the mid-60s he even runs this theater.
After World War II, Janibekyan teaches acting at the Theater Institute of Yerevan. In the 40s, he also leads the theater society in Armenia.
In 1978, Janibekyan dies in Yerevan. His grave is in the Tokhmakh cemetery.
Janibekyan was successfully married. His wife in 1938 gave birth to a son, Karen, who followed in the footsteps of his father. He became a film actor, earned the title of People's Artist of the Republic of Armenia. Died in 2015.
The grandson of the hero of our article, Michael, also chose a creative profession. Now he is 43 years old, he plays in the cinema and theater.
Filmography of Janibekyan
Films with Gurgen Janibekyan are well known and remembered by domestic viewers. His debut on the big screen took place in 1937 in the little-known film "Karo".
In 1938, he plays in the historical and revolutionary drama Ambartsum Bek-Nazarov and Jacob Dukor "Zangezur". This is a story about Armenia, captured by the war in 1921. According to the plot, the Dashnak detachments that left Yerevan were settled in the city of Zangezur. They are led by Sparapet. From there they try to resist the advancing Red Army.
An ideological professional revolutionary is sent to fight the Dashnaks. Janibekyan plays a hero named Sako.
Of his famous films, one should note the drama of Khoren Abrahamyan and Gurgen Boryan "The Saroyan Brothers" about siblings, who during the revolution find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. One of them becomes a convinced Bolshevik, and the second leads the Dashnak counterintelligence. In this tape, the hero of our article plays the role of Grandfather Artin. The picture was successful, was awarded prizes at the All-Union film festivals.
In 1972, Janibekyan plays in the drama Frunze Dovlatyan “Chronicle of Yerevan Days” about the archivist Armen Abrahamyan, who surprisingly feels the connection between the past and the future, always remains indifferent to the problems of those around him.
The next year, Janibekyan can be seen in Bagrat Hovhannisyan’s drama “Toxic Grape”. The main character of this picture is Vagik, he lives with a disabled uncle, refusing to believe that his father died in the war, despite the fact that a funeral had already come to him.
The boy daily goes to the railway station, hoping to see his father returning from the war. Suddenly this dream, which seemed unrealizable, comes true. It turns out that his father spent two years among the partisans, and that he was considered to have been killed by mistake. It turns out that by this time the boy’s mother had already found a new husband, so his father has to return to the front, where he dies.