From childhood he dreamed of only one thing: the career of an opera singer. But after playing several roles in amateur performances, he decided to become an actor. He is known to a wide audience for his roles in their favorite films: “12 Chairs” (1976) - Bartholomew Korobeinikov, “The Brothers Karamazov” (1968) - Fedor Pavlovich and “Blonde Around the Corner” (1984 c.) - Gavrila Maksimovich, Pope Nicholas. Probably, everyone has already guessed that it will be about one of the pillars of Soviet cinema. So, Mark Prudkin, People's Artist of the Soviet Union.
Children's years and the tree of kind
Little Marik was born in the town of Klin (Moscow province) on the fourteenth day of September 1898. All the boy’s childhood and youthful years passed in his native land.
His family lived modestly enough. His ancestors - both grandfather and father (Isaak Lvovich Prudkin) were also residents of this place. They were engaged in tailoring. Almost all the townspeople were their customers. In addition, peasants from villages located in the neighborhood came to them with orders. Tailors did not break the price for their work, and sometimes they could sew in installments. Therefore, there were no special problems with customers.
From the outside it might seem that this family is quite wealthy. But Mark Prudkin remembered something completely different: as a boy, he (at the request of his father) ran with notes to familiar villagers in order to borrow five or ten rubles for several days. Then the whole large family could stretch to the nearest “salary”. And yet, although not all childhood memories were joyful, the actor Mark Prudkin always with special tenderness and warmth recalled his mother, father, his whole family and his native land - the town of Klin.
Dreams Dreams...
If you look, Mark Isaakovich never dreamed of seeing himself on stage or in front of a movie camera lens. He really wanted to become an opera singer. The first role of the future actor took place when he was still a student of a real school, on the stage of an amateur theater. When he was only 15 years old (1913), his character was a warrior in the play Life for the Tsar. Around the same age, he expected the first failure of the artist. He then read Pushkin, "Slanderers of Russia." Suddenly he forgot all the text in the middle. Marik fled from the scene, and at home, calling himself a loser, he was sure that this was the end of his career in the theater.
Two years passed before Prudkin Mark again tried his luck on the same stage. They staged a play by A. Ostrovsky, “Poverty is not a vice.” Everyone could try their hand at acting. Many sought to play the role of Lyubim Tortsov, even a competition was held. As a result, Tortsova was played by Mark Prudkin.
After the premiere, which was more than successful, one of the teachers turned to Mark's parents with the words that, unlike the others, playing like nonsense, their offspring played like a real artist. The performance ended long ago, the noise of applause died down, and a real storm of emotions was raging in the soul of young Prudkin. And after several decades, he very vividly remembered his feelings after the performance. His stage colleagues forgot about the premiere immediately after its completion, they returned to their daily affairs. But Mark was as if possessed. He felt an inexplicable loss and was worried that this might not happen again.
Then there was the role of Mizgir in the play “The Snow Maiden” (Pyotr Ilyich’s younger brother, Modest Tchaikovsky, invited to the premiere, expressed gratitude and praise to Mark and assured him that he has very good stage abilities) and other theatrical works.
“I will be an actor!”
In Klin, a circle of dramatic art begins to work under the leadership of Vladimir Rubtsov. Mark Prudkin, whose biography is an amazing mixture of talent, perseverance, desire to create and a great love of art, decided to go there. The actors who were members of this circle played absolutely free of charge, because all the money that was possible to get from the performances went to help people in need.
To enter the Moscow Art Theater, Mark had to go to Moscow. At the entrance exams, he demonstrated his talents so well that he was accepted.
There was still a year left until the end of the school, so he was enrolled in the studio, issued a certificate and sent home to graduate.
“To Moscow, to Moscow” ...
Soon Prudkin Mark returns to Moscow and plays in the second studio of the Moscow Art Theater. For six years he had different images: Karl Mor in The Robbers, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Prince Myshkin in The Idiot, Volodya in the Green Ring ... In 1924, the Moscow Art Theater School graduated work. Everyone who worked there entered the troupe of the Moscow Art Academic Theater as if by its second generation. They, regardless of the role that had to be played, set a very high bar, which they never, under any circumstances, did not reduce.
At first, Prudkin played romantic men, conquerors of the tender hearts of women - Don Luis, Karl Moor ... He became truly famous only 28 years after working in the play "Days of the Turbins" (his character is adjutant Shervinsky). The success was overwhelming. A little later, tests of the boundaries of acting began, which the young actor really liked. Mark Prudkin saw his calling as living on stage an infinite number of new lives. In the image he created, he could combine external comic and internal ruthlessness. Ostrovsky’s plays contributed to the fact that the audience saw the actor diverse, one of his roles was absolutely not like the other. Prudkin said that accurate images are obtained from the memories of the city of Klin and the townspeople.
Road to the screen
In 1961, Prudkin played one of his best theatrical roles - Fedor Pavlovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. And eight years later, director Ivan Pyryev invites him to the same role in the film adaptation of the novel. Prudkin was not particularly fond of cinema, but Pyryev was not a man to throw his idea halfway. And Prudkin himself nevertheless decided to try his hand, especially in company with Kirill Lavrov, Mikhail Ulyanov and Alexei Myagkov. As a result, a huge win and luck for Pyryev was precisely the invitation to the picture of Mark Prudkin.
After such an amazingly delightful film debut, Mark Prudkin was invited to many films. But he did not agree to everything. His creative track record has interesting paintings - “Twelve Chairs”, “Blonde Around the Corner”, “Watch Solo with Fight”, “Swan Song”, “Target Selection” and others. But the actor was sure that even the best production could not replace the actor’s live communication from the theater stage with the audience in the hall.
In his last period of life, Mark Prudkin played with the young talents of the Moscow Art Theater. The master belonged to the new generation with some irritation and admiration. He did not understand their mood for the stage performance, but he was kindly delighted at how quickly they can enter the role, without changing their mind after the performance: “succeeded - failed”.
Already quite an elderly person (this is 1983), Prudkin embodied on the stage the role of Pontius Pilate in the play “Ball by Candlelight”. This was a peculiar reading of The Master and Margarita. And this performance was staged by a young and very talented director Vladimir Markovich Prudkin, his son.
Prudkin Mark Isaakovich lived a long and happy life. His personal life also seemed to have developed, but in recent years, and especially days, only his son Volodya was in it. The actor celebrated his 96th birthday in the hospital. He was cheerful, joked, even issued an impromptu medical staff. And the next day he suddenly weakened and slept almost constantly. The son had to return from a trip abroad to be with his father at this time. He recognized his boy and even asked about the outcome of the trip. But then the temperature kept rising and rising. September 24, Mark Prudkin left this mortal world.
His body was laid to rest at the Novodevichy cemetery, "next door" to his colleagues - Oleg Borisov, Evgeny Leonov, Sergey Bondarchuk ...