Director Vladimir Menshov is the person who brought the USSR the fourth and last Oscar in the history of this country. However, the list of his merits does not end there. He not only shot a few sparkling comedies that became hits of his time and still have not lost their relevance, but he also played a lot of various bright roles in the movie.
Vladimir Menshov: family
The father of the future director, Valentin Mikhailovich, was an assistant to the captain, and then became an employee of the NKVD.
Even while working as a sailor, Valentin Menshov met Antonina Alexandrovna Dubovskaya, who served as a maid on a ship. Soon the young people signed, and a year later - September 17, 1939 - their son was born - Menshov Vladimir Valentinovich.
early years
Vladimir was born in Baku, and his childhood passed right there. In 1941, his sister Ira was born. The family of the future director lived in the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan until 1947, and later they were forced to move to Arkhangelsk on business of Valentin Mikhailovich.
Life in the post-war decade was not easy, so parents physically did not have enough time to devote much attention to children. Therefore, barely going to school, young Vladimir Menshov was left to his own devices. The biography of this man could have turned out very differently, but, fortunately, he was passionately interested in reading and cinema.
The young man spent all his free time in the library and cinemas. He literally swallowed many books, and he knew most of the films of that era by heart.
A childhood hobby influenced the choice of a profession: after graduating from school in 1957, Vladimir Menshov announced to his parents that he intended to become an artist. This choice did not please the father of the guy who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps - he became a military man. However, Vladimir was adamant and, collecting his things, went to Moscow: to enter the VGIK.
First steps in the acting field
However, the capital of the USSR did not very cordially meet the ardent young man. He was not accepted to the institute, despite the silver medal and rather good preparation.
But the future director did not lose heart. He returned to Astrakhan, where his parents lived at that time, and made sure that he was accepted into the local drama theater as an auxiliary actor. Learning theatrical wisdom in practice, Vladimir earned his living by working as a turner in one of the local factories. Later he changed a number of professions: from a miner to a sailor.
Four years of work in other areas did not cool the desire to become an actor. Therefore, in 1961, Menshov again stormed Moscow, and this time successfully: a talented young man was admitted to the Moscow Art Theater School.
Studying at the Moscow Art Theater not only helped to reveal his talent, but also made it possible to make useful contacts among actors and directors. In addition, it was here that Vladimir met a charming sophomore Vera Alentova, who became the main love of his life.
Despite the fact that many teachers claimed that the great actor Vladimir Menshov, not one theater in Moscow did not take him to work after the Moscow Art Theater. They managed to find a place only in Stavropol, where the graduate went to work for 2 whole years.
This failure did not break Vladimir Menshov - he decided to become a director.
The beginning of the directorial career and the first appearance in the movie
After retiring from the Drama Theater in Stavropol, Menshov Vladimir Valentinovich submitted documents to the graduate school of VGIK. Mikhail Romm liked his work so much that he not only enrolled a talented young man in his second year, but also organized postgraduate studies for him in directing a feature film. Thus, Menshov became the first and last graduate student of this specialization.
In 1970, Vladimir Menshov completed his studies and signed an agreement on work with three Soviet film studios at once: Odessa, Mosfilm and Lenfilm. In the same year, Menshov’s classmate - Alexander Pavlovsky - was preparing to shoot the film “Happy Kukushkin” and invited a friend to work with him. Vladimir Valentinovich became a co-author of the script, and later got the main role. Menshov’s debut on the movie screen immediately attracted attention, and the actor was awarded the main prize of the Kiev festival “Youth-71”.
After “Happy Kukushkin” everyone suddenly noticed the acting talent that Vladimir Menshov possessed. Films with his participation began to appear quite often on Soviet screens in the next 5 years. This is “A man in his place”, “Salty dog”, “Ar-hi-me-dy!”, “The Tale of how Tsar Peter Arapa married” and others.
Despite the booming acting career in cinema, Vladimir Valentinovich dreamed of making his own full-length film, and in 1976 he had the opportunity.
"Raffle"
Menshov’s directorial debut was a film about the life of schoolchildren according to the script by Semyon Lungin - “The Draw”. This picture was the most successful in the Soviet box office in 1977 and won a lot of prestigious awards.
Many movie stars of that time (Oleg Tabakov, Zinovy ​​Gerdt, Natalya Fateeva, Evgenia Khanayeva and Vladimir Menshov himself) starred in secondary roles. But the main characters were instructed to play the young actors.
Most of them did not have acting experience and were ordinary students in schools. The "Draw" became their lucky movie ticket. For example, Dmitry Kharatyan (Igor Grushko) was previously an ordinary student who came to audition for a company with a friend. But Natalya Vavilova, who played Taya Petrova, previously starred with Sergei Bondarchuk in “Such High Mountains”. There was also little experience with the performer of the role of Dasha Rozanova - Evdokia Germanova - and Andrei Gusev (Oleg Komarovsky). All these young artists after participating in the "Draw" became famous throughout the country.
The song "Farewell Waltz", played in the final of the film, has become a school anthem and is still popular.
This amazing picture of love, betrayal, talent and the path to success made Menshov famous throughout the USSR as a director. Now he was free to choose almost any picture, and in 1978 Vladimir Valentinovich began work on a project written by Valentin Chernykh “Twice She Lied”.
"Moscow does not believe in tears"
From the very beginning, the director had a lot of problems. Firstly, he did not like the script, so he changed it beyond recognition. In addition, to find actresses for the main roles was not at all easy. In the role of Katya Tikhomirova, Menshov wanted to remove Margarita Terekhova, but she preferred to play Milady in D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, and Anastasia Vertinskaya, who was also invited to the test, simply refused. Then the main character was played by the wife of Vladimir Menshov - Vera Alentova.
Few people wanted to play Milo Tosya either: Galina Polskikh called this heroine vulgar, and Raisa Ryazanova madly wanted to be Lyudmila, but subsequently agreed to this role, since the role of Sviridova had already gone to Irina Muravyova.
The daughter of Katya Tikhomirova was played by Natalia Vavilova, a friend of everyone on the "Draw". It is noteworthy that the parents of the young actress were against her participation in the film, and Alexei Batalov (Gosh) persuaded them - who was already at that time already a legend in Soviet cinema.
In addition, the stars of the fifties played in the film themselves: Innokenty Smoktunovsky, George Yumatov, Leonid Kharitonov, as well as the poet Andrei Voznesensky.
Despite the fact that a little more than half a million rubles were allocated for the shooting, the director tried his best to hide the budget deficit.
Although many criticized the director that he took the spouse for the main role, eyewitnesses of the shootings confirmed: Menshov was very strict about Alentova. Moreover, she even had to star in several rather piquant scenes (with Oleg Tabakov and Alexei Batalov), however, most of this did not get into the finished picture.
In 1980, the second film directed by Vladimir Menshov finally came out. Critics greeted her coolly, but the audience fell in love with the movie at first sight. Moreover, about 100 foreign countries acquired the rights to rent a tape, and the Americans awarded the picture with an Oscar. Unfortunately, at that time the director was forbidden to travel abroad, and the USSR representative took the honorary award for him. Only in 1988, Vladimir Menshov “Oscar” was able to get.
"Love and pigeons"
In the following years, Vladimir Valentinovich focused on his acting career. He starred in such famous films as “Under the Same Sky”, “Time for Thinking”, “If the Enemy Doesn’t Surrender ...” and “Highway”. Despite the demand for acting, Vladimir Menshov wanted to continue to make films.
And his next work as a director was the 1984 film Love and Pigeons. Her script was written based on the play of Vladimir Gurkin. Unlike the director’s previous works, the new film told about the fate of the inhabitants of the province.
The main roles in the project were played by Alexander Mikhailov, Nina Doroshina and matchless Lyudmila Gurchenko. The episodes starred Sergei Jurassic and his wife Natalya Tenyakova. And in the episodes, Vladimir Menshov himself played.
This film was again greeted coolly by critics because it came out during the Gorbachev anti-alcohol company, and the main characters quite often drank on the screen. However, the audience liked the new brainchild of Menshov, and later critics “thawed”.
Other directorial work
The next decade, Vladimir Menshov was known only as an actor. During this time, he played over twenty different roles in such projects as Courier, Doll, Suicide, New Odeon, Trotsky, etc.
However, in 1995, Vladimir Valentinovich again sat in the director's chair of the painting "Shirley-myrli." The new comedy farce Menshov was never able to achieve the success of his previous works. The main roles in the project were played by Valery Garkalin and Vera Alentova. The director himself played the role of the president of the Russian Federation.
In 2000, another directorial work by Vladimir Valentinovich appeared on the screens - the melodrama "Envy of the Gods." This tape was the third joint project that Vera Alentova and Vladimir Menshov worked on.
Acting career in recent years
With the beginning of the new millennium, the demand for Menshov as an actor increased. So, in 2004, he played Geser in The Night Watch, based on the book of the same name by Sergey Lukyanenko. A year later, Vladimir Menshov returned to this role in The Day Watch.
The biography of Vladimir Valentinovich as an actor since then for the most part consists of the roles of commanders and military.
So, he played the generals in "Time to Collect Stones" with Vladimir Vdovichenko (also was the producer of the project); in the "Code of the Apocalypse" with Anastasia Zavorotnyuk; in "Saboteur" and its continuation.
In parallel with these same-type characters, Menshov embodied completely unusual images on the screen. For example, in the film “Oh, lucky!” along with Sergei Shakurov, the actor played a wizard of non-standard orientation. In the third picture of the popular comedy cycle "Love-Carrot" Menshov embodied the image of the father of the protagonist, who exchanged body with him. In the film "Generation P", based on the cult novel by V. Pelevin, the actor got the role of the leading news television show Farsuk Farseykin.
In the comedy “The Quartet I” “What else men are talking about”, the moral landmark and conscience of the traitor Lesha - Leo Tolstoy - Vladimir Menshov himself played.
Menshova’s directorial biography also knew failures. So in 2008, he began work on the painting "The Big Waltz", but this project was never completed.
Today, despite his considerable age (the actor has long exceeded seventy), he continues to act in films.
Vladimir Menshov: personal life
It is generally accepted that actors and directors are very inconsistent people, and therefore their personal lives do not add up. Vladimir Valentinovich was the happy exception to this rule: all his life he loved only one woman - actress Vera Alentova. However, their life together was not always smooth.
They got married as students of the Moscow Art Theater. But after studying, they were forced to leave. The reason was the departure of Menshov in Stavropol. Unlike her husband, Alentova after the Moscow Art Theater got a job at the Moscow Theater. A.S. Pushkin.
A few years later, Vladimir Valentinovich returned to Moscow and established relations with his wife, and in 1969 their daughter Julia was born.
Despite the birth of a child, the spouses had a lot of problems. First of all, they did not have shared housing. Therefore, for many years Vera and Vladimir lived separately.
Only when Menshov became a famous director and received an apartment in the center of Moscow, the couple were able to start living together.
Julia Menshova
The only daughter of the star couple - Julia - went in parental footsteps and became an actress.
It is worth noting that she did everything on her own, and neither Vera Alentova nor Vladimir Menshov helped her.
Biography of Yulia Vladimirovna as an actress begins in 1990, when the girl graduated from the workshop of Alexander Kalyagin at the Moscow Art Theater School. After that, she played in the theater, cinema and on television.
A real breakthrough for Julia Menshova happened in 1994, when she began to work on television. She hosted the TV show "I myself", "My movie", "To be continued", "Teach me how to live" and "Alone with everyone."
In the cinema, her most significant works were: “The legible bridegroom”, “Big love”, “Everything mixed up in the house” and “Balzac age, or All men are their own ...”.
Entertaining facts
- For the "Draw" Menshov became the laureate of the prize to them. N.K. Krupskaya, and for the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" he was awarded the USSR State Prize.
- Since 1984, Vladimir Menshov has been an Honored Artist of the RSFSR, and 5 years later he also received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR.
- He participated in the voice acting of the games “Day Watch” and “Night Watch”. He played the role of Geser.
- He is an ideological communist who did not change his worldview after the collapse of the USSR. Because of this, being the host of the MTV 2007 ceremony, he refused to broadcast the film “Bastards” on air. A similar situation was repeated with the painting Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel. Menshov protested against her nomination for an Oscar from the Russian Federation.
- He has two grandchildren: Andrei and Taisiya.
- In 2007, the artist received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Astrakhan.
- Voiced by the mayor of Zveropolis in the cartoon of the same name in 2016.
Vladimir Menshov was far from immediately able to conquer the capital of the USSR. He achieved a lot, becoming one of the most successful directors and actors of domestic cinema in its history. Despite his merits, Menshov today does not rest on his laurels, but actively works for the good of culture. In addition to working in the cinema, he also shares his invaluable experience with the young generation, teaching in the acting and director's workshop at VGIK.