Soviet Georgian actors have always been distinguished from the rest by a special article, expressive appearance and ardent character. For this reason, Georgian actors invariably attracted the attention of millions of women from a vast country, and women actresses admired the entire second half of its large population.
Childhood
The biography of actor Kakha Kavsadze, the future famous Abdullah from the movie "White Sun of the Desert", began in Tbilisi, the ancient city of sunny Georgia. It was in it, and not in the city of Tkibuli, whose name was later mistakenly written down by officials as the birthplace of Kakha. In the family of a musician and a doctor on June 5, 1935, our hero was born.
Both his grandfather, Sandro Kavsadze, and father David linked their lives with music. They were people quite famous in their field, which was simply obliged to follow in their footsteps and Kakha. Yes, he went at first, entering with his brother in a music school for gifted children. However, they were soon expelled from there - the children of the enemy of the people had no place among a prosperous society.
Grandfather Sandro
Sandro Kavsadze in Tbilisi and beyond knew everything. A talented musician, choirmaster and singer, he founded and directed the National Song and Dance Ensemble of Georgia, which exists to date. A thirteen-year-old boy Soso named Dzhugashvili sang in the folklore choir, which was organized by the grandfather of Kakhi Kavsadze back when he was studying at the theological seminary. The future leader of the whole country. Since that time, Joseph Vissarionovich had infused Sandro with unlimited respect, considering him his teacher.
Once, in an attempt to somehow thank him and in memory of the past, Stalin even asked Sandro what he, a great man, could do for him? Awards, apartments, titles - Dzhugashvili was ready and capable of anything. To which, in response, Sandro Kavsadze asked to give the leader’s legendary pipe, which he always smoked. Grinning, Stalin handed it to him.
In the photo: the actor’s grandfather, Sandro Kavsadze, with his sons - David, father of Kakha, and Giusha, uncle.
When Sandro Kavsadze became seriously ill, one day he received a letter from Stalin written in Georgian:
Greetings Sandro! I accidentally found out that you were in the hospital. This is bad. If you need something, tell me. I am ready to give you all kinds of help. Live a thousand years. Greetings. Your soso. September 9, 1937.
Father
David, the father of Kakha Kavsadze, graduated from the Tbilisi Conservatory, sang beautifully, was a composer, conductor and even directed the Folk Song choir when Grandfather Sandro died.
The fate of Kakha's father was not so enviable. When the Great Patriotic War began, he immediately went to the front. In bloody battles near Kerch he was wounded, captured, and later became a prisoner of a concentration camp in Germany. Surprisingly, from captivity in 1943, he managed to free the Parisian Georgian diaspora when she found out that among the prisoners of the camp was David, the son of the same Sandro Kavsadze. How exactly this was done, information was not preserved. It is only known that, having barely recovered, David decided to create in Paris a real Georgian song and dance ensemble. For these purposes, with the help of the same diaspora with which he was saved, Kavsadze obtained permission to select candidates from among prisoners of Georgian origin in the same death camps. Thus, he managed to save a lot of people, because in fact his ultimate goal was not the ensemble at all.
Here is how Kakhi Kavsadze describes these events:
Officially, he gathered Georgian singers, but in fact he recruited people of various nationalities. As they told me, he walked along the line and spoke in Georgian: “Who is Georgian, come out!” Anyone who understood Georgian came out: Jews, Armenians, Russians, Azerbaijanis. Many didn’t know how to sing, but he still took them from the ranks: “Come out, come out ...”
A lot of people saved ...
However, after returning to Georgia in 1945, David Kavsadze was arrested, declared an enemy of the people and exiled to Siberia, where he later died, not having lived only one year before Stalin's death.
Mom
At the time of the wedding, Tamara Tsagareishvili, the mother of Kakha Kavsadze, was a young graduate of a medical institute. Then she worked as a doctor in a tuberculosis dispensary. When the war broke out and David’s husband went to the front, Kakhi was only six years old, and his brother Imeri was four. Since then, Tamara raised her sons alone.
After the arrest and exile of her husband, who had previously been considered heroically dead, they stopped paying her allowance, and then they began to cut her already small salary received in the dispensary. Both she and the children did not always manage to eat.
Tamara raised sons for herself and for her father, punishing for hooligan acts, which were a great many, both at once. For the strength of character shown by her mother, Kakha and Imeri jokingly called her a tiger tamer.
Kavsadze actor
At first, Kakhi, who studied at a mathematical school, did not even think of linking his fate with the profession of an actor. Providence itself intervened - when the young man was already in graduation class, he was unexpectedly invited to film screenings and approved for the role. However, soon Kakhi was seriously injured in training and was hospitalized. Instead, they chose another candidate. But the seed of doubt, born in the soul of the future famous actor, has grown and has borne fruit. Already in the hospital, after long deliberation, he decides to become an actor.
In 1956, while studying at the Tbilisi Theater Institute, Kavsadze made his film debut, convincingly playing his role in the film "Eteri's Song". Kakhi Kavsadze, whose growth was 185 centimeters, like a shark fin towered above his fellow students. His bright and textured character was impossible not to notice. Kavsadze began to constantly appear on the screens ("Mamluk", "Fit for non-combatant" and other tapes).
The actor truly became famous throughout the country in 1969, starring in the role of the negative hero Abdullah in the film "The White Sun of the Desert." The female audience simply went crazy with a charismatic bandit with an eagle eye.
Then, in 1973, there was also a successful role in the highly acclaimed “Melodies of the Veria Quarter” film.
Significant for Kavsadze was the leading role in the drama "The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho" in 1988. The role for which the actor lost almost thirty kilograms.
All eighty films of Kakha Kavsadze, in which he happened to play for more than 57 years of his creative career, found love and recognition from the audience of the whole country.
Bella
In the biography of Kakha Kavsadze, his wife, actress Bella Mirianashvili, became the only woman. The true love of his life.
Kakhi, this tall handsome prominent Georgian, usually towering above the crowd, having met his chosen one at a theater institute, suddenly became small and timid. All that was enough for him was to observe the girl from the side.
This secret love at a distance lasted so long that Bella during this time managed to get married and have a daughter, Nana.
And only when the girl divorced her previous husband, Kakhi overcame himself and went on a decisive offensive. They played in the same theater, and very soon the couple became friends. For all his life, as the actor recalls, he never told Bella that he loved her. He was able to show all his feelings to her without words - with his actions and attitude.
A family
Kakhi Kavsadze adopted Bella's one and a half year old daughter from her first marriage, Nana, as her own. God gave them a common child - the son of Heraclius.
However, a young happy family was in for misfortune - during pregnancy, Bella fell ill with the flu. She did not take any medicine, fearing to harm the child. Heraclius was born healthy. But Bella’s disease caused a complication, as a result of which two years later the girl lost her ability to walk and remained confined to a wheelchair until the end of her life.
Of the 26 years that the couple was destined to spend together, only three years Kakha and Bella lived a normal human life.
Despite the illness, the wife managed to live a full life - she kept their house clean, raised her children, received guests and never complained about anything. Kakhi idolized and literally carried Bella in her arms until her very last day, August 28, 1992. She fell asleep and no longer woke up ...
Despite everything, the actor Kakhi Kavsadze considers these 26 years spent with Bella to be the happiest in his life. He could not forget his wife, remained faithful to her even after her death, and every day carries a bouquet of yellow flowers on her grave.
Children
Their children followed in the footsteps of their parents. Daughter Nana became an actress in the Rustaveli Theater, and works with her father. His son Heraclius also served in the theater with his family, but then he moved to the American city of Washington, where he works in a local theater.
The artist says:
Sometimes it seems that fate turns away from us. But it seems to me that she actually checks: how will you behave? And if you don’t break, you act like a man, she won’t leave you ...
In each of his children, Kakhi Kavsadze sees pieces of his beloved Bella.
She is no longer there, but they are. And life goes on (in the photo - Kakhi Kavsadze today).