The other day marks eight years since the death of "the main German of the Soviet Union." He passed away in Kaunas after a serious illness. In the distant 70-80s of the last century, both ordinary Soviet viewers and directors who made non-stop films about the war considered this Lithuanian artist to be the best performer of the roles of Nazis and Germans of all ranks and stripes. So, the hero of this article is Algimantas Masiulis, Honored and People's Artist of the Lithuanian SSR.
The first years of the life of the great Master
One of the most famous Lithuanian and Soviet actors of the second half of the twentieth century saw this whole huge world on the tenth day of July 1931. This happened in the small village of Surdegis, Anykščiai district in Lithuania. The boy was named Algimantas.
He was still very young when he made a very important decision for himself to become an actor. And not just an actor, but very famous. The boy was drawn to this profession. He was attracted to her by the fact that there he could fully reveal his soul, all his emotions, his talent, his skill. Therefore, Algimantas Masiulis, immediately after receiving a certificate of high school graduation, becomes a student at the famous Panevezys Drama Theater. The young man is diligently studying acting and the ability to transform in the studio, giving it all his strength, all the time. So, gradually, trying to make his dream come true, Masulis Algimantas walked towards his goal.
Theater Olympus
The future actor graduated from the studio in 1948. He was one of the best students in his graduation. Now in his baggage of knowledge there was a lot of experience and fundamental knowledge gained during his studies. The young actor was as if inspired by his first successes.
After receiving the diploma Algimantas Masiulis becomes an actor who became close, dear and dear to him of the Panevezys Drama Theater. He worked there until 1978, and then went to the Kaunas Academic Drama Theater.
Fame in the Land of Soviets
It is unfortunate that out of a huge number of adherents of theatrical art, only a small circle of theater-goers knew about the truly unlimited talent of the most ordinary guy, a peasant son. But those few were eagerly awaiting the announcement that a trip would be organized to Panevezys, to the Miltinis Theater.
And already there, on the famous stage, embodying many characters, the beautiful, noble and stately actor Masiulis Algimantas played with inimitable skill. As a rule, together with him, supporting the magical atmosphere of the theater, Donatas Banionis, Bronius Babkauskas, Wenceslas Bledis were on the stage ...
With the light hand of Miltinis
Masiulis was lucky to be on the team of Juozas Miltinis, a great teacher and theater director. It was this talented person who was able not only to discern the abilities of Algimantas, but also to develop them. Juozas for a specific purpose recruited non-professionals into the troupe, later teaching them both acting and cultural history, good manners, foreign languages. It was a great school for the beginner of his career Masulis.
Many years later, in an interview, Masiulis Algimantas Ionovich shared his memories, talking about the fact that he is in a firm and indestructible confidence: there are no recipes in art. No mathematical formulas can explain and describe creativity. There are no rules, but there are requirements - moral and ethical. After all, an artist, even belonging to the caste of eminent, has no right to humiliate a person or deprive him of the right to hope.
The same age as Lithuanian cinema
For the first time, Algimantas Masiulis decided to step onto the set in 1955. We can say that he is the same age as Lithuanian cinema. At first he starred in a film about Ignotas who returned home, but his real film debut, after which they began to recognize him, took place a little later, just a year later. It was a short film with the strange name “The Drowned Man”, which was the first feature film created at the Lithuanian studio.
The tape, which is an adaptation of the novel by the classic Pyatras Zvirka, consisted of only one part. Algimantas was invited to the main role - Ionis atas - an official of bourgeois Lithuania. His character finds himself in a situation that seems to be taken from jokes. All the ambitious aspirations of Shatas fail.
In preparation for the shooting, Masiulis decided to play in a manner of tragicomedy. He worked on the border between grotesque and seriousness. At that time, Algimantas was one of the leading actors of the Panevezys Theater, he had a good school in reserve, and he played with high level professionalism. Since the release of this short film, Masiulis began to appear on screens with enviable regularity. At first it was work exclusively in Lithuanian paintings, and from the mid-sixties he began to collaborate with other studios.
"Cinema" fate
The short film “The Drowned Man” was a debut in the work of the director Vytautas alakevičius. It was with him that in tandem, Masiulis played one of his best characters. The actor has a consistent acting style of performance, a very expressive type, a minimum of visible performing costs with a maximum of sharpness of form. All this made Masulis a vitally recognizable and characteristic hero of the predator world.
Each of his hero has keen expressiveness with the greatest external restraint, the focus of every moment of life, precise thoughtfulness and the ability to build a role as a whole from the first to the last movement. All this plus a bright characteristic appearance for many years determined the “cinematic” fate of Algimantas. On the stage, he shone in different roles, but on the set he appeared in the guise of villains. But, as you know, villains are also different ...
Intelligent villains
In jest, Algimantas was nicknamed the main fascist of the Soviet Union. And he himself dreamed of playing Don Quixote. But almost always filmmakers saw him as completely “not our” person. It seemed to them that it was Masiulis who would ideally play the Western spy or SS man. And so it was. For some reason, they believed that he had a typical bourgeois texture: the habits of a gentleman, the face of a real aristocrat, the look of an intellectual.
In Soviet cinema, the actor was responsible for the roles of foreigners. A beautiful blue-eyed blonde with thin lips, a manly chin and very expressive, even slightly predatory nostrils. Such an interesting texture, plus a slight accent, doomed him to play in films about the war of the Germans, and in detectives from the life of Americans - residents of the United States.
This is not surprising, because his debut was the role of a fascist officer. And yet, the all-Union glory brought him the role again of the fascist Willy Schwarzkopf in the film “Shield and Sword”. The director of the film, Vladimir Basov, suggested that he play his character not in the way that was customary in Soviet cinema, but in a completely different way. And he, thinking about the war, recalled that the soldiers did not care about the war, but among the officers one could meet real ideological Nazis, educated people.
The last battle
Algimantas Masiulis, whose films have been watched by millions of viewers with great pleasure for half a century, has played many interesting and diverse roles. In the movie, it was almost a hundred characters. On the theater stage - almost two hundred. And now, when this name sounds, his heroes appear before his eyes: Squire Trelawney from Treasure Island, Stufen from the Collapse of Engineer Garin, Knight Guy Gisborne from The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Aivengo, Sherlock Holmes from the Blue Carbuncle, lawyer Jeffson from the American Tragedy, Karl Weierstrass from Sophia Kovalevskaya, Mr. Regan from Hearts of Three, Dorman from Kamenskaya ...
His last work was the painting Fritz and Blondes. Such as he was in the frame of the film, and Algimantas Masiulis was remembered.
The actor himself often recalled with nostalgia Soviet cinema and his past as a “German officer”.
Algimantas Masiulis: family
With his wife Grazhina, he lived for many years in Kaunas, working in the local drama theater. There were not very many funds in the family, because in Russia they rarely remember stars. They were helped by daughter Milda with her granddaughter Agne, who, deciding to continue the medical dynasty of her mother and grandmother, graduated from the medical dynasty and came to work in the Vilnius Children's Clinic. The son took part in the filming of Fritz and Blondes. This documentary became their collaboration with his father.
Algimantas Masiulis lived a long and interesting life, during which he presented his audience with wonderful characters and heroes. He died at 77 years old. The heart of the great Lithuanian actor stopped beating on August 19, 2008.