Erast Garin is an actor, director and screenwriter who worked equally well both in the cinema and on the theatrical stage of the Soviet Union. Today, he is best known for playing the King in the 1947 film "Cinderella". The biography of Erast Garin, his work and personal life interest many.
early years
Erast Pavlovich Garin (real surname Gerasimov), was born on October 28, 1902 in Ryazan (then the Russian Empire), into a poor family of ordinary workers. He studied at the Ryazan gymnasium. Little Erast was not an assiduous child, but instantly assimilated any information that allowed him to get good grades without sitting too long for his homework. Like the whole family, Erast supported and showed open sympathy for the new Soviet government, and therefore, barely graduating from school, at 17 he volunteered to join the Red Army. There, the first clash of Erast with the theater and creativity took place - he performed on the stage of the garrison theater, which was later re-qualified as the First Amateur Theater of the Red Army. The comrades in the theater, noticing the actor’s excitement of the young man, said that he was “on fire” on the stage - hence the pseudonym for the aspiring actor “Garin” appeared. His acting debut was a small role in the production of the comedy by Yakov Knyazhnin "Sbitenschik", with whom the theater went to Moscow. In the photo below, Erast Garin in the 20s.
Despite the fact that Erast had a really small role, on the Moscow tour he was noticed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, seeing in the youth the makings of a real actor. He advised Garin to begin his studies by profession and invited him to the Higher State directing workshops, which he himself supervised - the young man entered there in 1921.
The beginning of professional creativity
In 1922, Erast Garin became an actor in the Meyerhold State Theater. The young man quickly earned the trust of Vsevolod Emilievich, becoming his favorite actor and student. The great director listened to Garin's opinion, appreciating his sober, analytical mind.
The first big role of the aspiring actor was immediately ten characters in the play "Give Europe" (in the posters and repertoire it was listed as "D.E."). Among them were six inventors, one inventor, a fascist, a killed worker and a poet from the desert. In this work, Garin demonstrated a true talent for parody and reincarnation, reinforced by dexterity and character. He fit perfectly into the grotesque atmosphere of Meyerhold’s productions, playing with his voice, intonations, exaggerating human plasticity. In this production, all the features of the future “Garinsky style of play” arose.
Confession
Glory fell upon the young actor in 1925, after playing the main role in the production of the play "Mandate" by Nikolai Erdman. The image of Nepman Pavel Gulyachkin embodied by him became a symbol of the "scourging satire", more than three hundred times (according to the estimates of one of the critics) causing an explosive laughter of the audience. Garin in the image of Gulyachkin in the photo below.
No less successful were the subsequent roles of Khlestakov (performance "The Inspector General" in 1926) and Chatsky ("Woe to the Mind" of 1928). Here is what contemporary contemporaries wrote about Garin’s work in the play “Woe to Mind”:
He was not like the others played before him by Chatsky, he was unusual, unexpected. E. Garin was not just a comedic, eccentric, simpleton actor, as he had been seen before Chatsky, he was surprisingly lyrical, which became the main find of Vs. Meyerhold in the play.
It was the work in the productions of Meyerhold that in Erast Garin gave rise to a tendency to an eccentric and satirical buffoonery, which will accompany him in all subsequent acting works.
At the beginning of the 30s Garin was successful in radio performances. At that time, radio was just beginning to take root in the everyday life of Soviet people, and Garin's expressive voice made him one of the first radio favorites among ordinary listeners.
In 1936, Erast Garin decided to leave his friend and mentor Meyerhold, wanting to try his own hand at directing. He went to the Leningrad Comedy Theater (the modern St. Petersburg Academic Comedy Theater), staging plays and simultaneously playing them until 1950. Vsevolod Emilievich was not against the creative development of his favorite, and therefore supported his choice and many years of friendship did not break. When in 1938 Meyerhold lost his theater and was subjected to numerous persecutions, only Erast Garin remained loyal to him - the only one from the entire former troupe of the director. The great director spent his last night before his arrest with Garin and his wife. In the photo below, Erast Garin and Vsevolod Meyerhold at the rehearsal of The Examiner.
Film debut: "Marriage"
The first film with Erast Garin was the historical picture "Lieutenant Kizhe" in 1934, where he played the role of adjutant Kablukov. Garin liked the cinema, so in 1936, having left the Meyerhold Theater and having received more creative freedom, he decided to make his own movie. The choice fell on the adaptation of Gogol's Marriage, which Erast Pavlovich shot in the avant-garde style of Meyerhold's productions, skillfully combining frank theatricality with cinematic standards. The first prime minister did not leave indifferent any critic: reviews were divided into extremely enthusiastic and negatively devastating. But during the campaign against "formalism" of 1937-1938, "Marriage" was severely criticized, all copies were seized and destroyed, and the original negative was washed off the films. No copies of this painting have been found at this time.
"Doctor Kalyuzhny"
The fight against the "Meyerhold" in the USSR was gaining momentum, but because Garin again turned to the theater. In 1938, the directing and acting success of Garin was the production of the play "The Son of the People", which the playwright Yuri German wrote specifically for him. Brilliantly playing on the stage the role of Dr. Kalyuzhny, a selfless and sincerely pure representative of the Soviet intelligentsia, Erast Pavlovich earned the approval of critics, and therefore decided to transfer the successful performance to the cinema. However, the Lenfilm artistic council did not approve the director for the lead role. In their opinion, Garin’s appearance was not suitable for the role of the “Soviet hero”. As a result, the role went to Boris Tolmazov, who, at the request of the director, did not play, but "copied" the character already created by Erast Garin. In the photo below, a comparison of the images of Kalyuzhny performed by Garin and Tolmazov.
"Cinderella"
For the enormous fee received for directing Doctor Kalyuzhny, Garin bought an apartment in Moscow, and in 1941 moved with his wife to the capital. There he began acting in Soyuzdetfilm and Mosfilm studios, but for some time his on-screen roles did not deserve as much public success as theatrical ones. Everything changed in 1947 when the fairy-tale film "Cinderella" was released. Erast Garin played in him his best movie role - an eccentric, absent-minded, but very kind King, Prince's father. Its popularity, which continues to this day, is due to two acting works - Garin himself and Faina Ranevskaya, who played the equally eccentric stepmother of Cinderella.
Further creativity
After Cinderella, Garin played a series of small roles, showing himself as the great master of the episode. Appearing on the screen even for a few minutes, the actor managed to leave his character in the memory of the audience. Garin also did not leave theatrical creativity. In Moscow, he staged four performances on the stage of the Cinema Actor Theater and one at the Satire Theater. Over the course of his film career, he played three different fairy Kings three times in the films “Cain Eighteenth” (1963), “Ordinary Miracle” (1964) and “Half an Hour for Miracles” (1968). In addition, Garin voiced the Kings and Kings in the animated films “Fulfillment of Desires” (1957th), “Beloved Beloved” (1958th) and “Brave Tailor” (1964th), basically repeating the image first created in Cinderella . By the way, voicing of cartoons occupies a rather large place in the actor’s work: from 1947 to 1978 he gave his voice to more than forty characters, the most famous of which was Donkey Eeyore in the 1972 animated film “Winnie the Pooh and the Day of Concerns”.
Last years. Death
The last big acting, and at the same time the last directorial, work of Erast Garin was the picture "Funny Razlyuyev days" of 1966, in which he played the main role of Candid Tarelkin. During the filming of this film, Garin was injured, as a result of which he lost one eye and almost went blind on the other. This put an end to his directorial career, and he could no longer play the main roles in the cinema. The last vivid episodic roles of Erast Garin were Professor Maltsev in the film "Gentlemen of Fortune" (1971) and theater critic in "12 Chairs" (1971).
The actor died on September 4, 1980 in his Moscow apartment, he was 77 years old. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.
Personal life
Erast Garin married in 1922 the actress of the Meyerhold Theater, Hesa Lokshina. Madly in love with Erast, she became not only a wife, but also a creative companion, remaining her throughout her life. Erast Pavlovich created all the scripts, plays and films in collaboration with Hesey - they very subtly understood each other, which helped in the creation of joint projects. At the beginning of 1937, after the film "Marriage" was banned, the first misunderstanding arose between the spouses, which resulted in quarrels, and they parted for a while without formalizing a divorce. During this period, Garin lived with the writer Lyubov Rudneva. However, in separation, Erast Pavlovich very quickly realized that no one could ever replace him with Hesya - not only a beautiful woman, of whom there were many, but also a friend, comrade-in-arms, a creative like-minded person. Khesia and Erast again began to live together - the wife’s big heart made Garin not jealous when it turned out that Lyubov Rudneva was pregnant. He freely visited and supported the mother of his unborn child, and when his daughter Olga was born in 1938, he returned to Hesa, now forever. Olga Erastovna is the only child of the artist, and Khesia Alexandrovna never interfered in the communication of the father with her daughter. In the photo below, the wife of Garina.
After returning, the gossipers often said that Erast returned to Hesa out of pity, but in fact he was still in love with Luba. But the memories of people from the close environment of the spouses indicate the opposite. Here is a quote from the memoirs of the actor and director Evgeny Vesnik:
Erast Garin and Hesya Lokshina are a holy couple. They could not live without each other. They had no children. She treated him like a son, a brother, and Erast took her cares with an important and proud resignation, for granted. She was often sick, lying in hospitals, and these days you could feel who Hesya was for Erast. He became thinner, thinner, darkened, aged, grew up with a beard, became wrinkled, uncomfortable and even mean with eyes full of anxiety, sadness and confusion.
When he passed away, Khesia Alexandrovna burned out very quickly. Without Erast Pavlovich, she became lost, she soon went to him. Such pairs are not forgotten. Doves!
Khesia Alexandrovna really lived without her beloved husband for only two years, having died in June 1982.