22 March to actor George Zhzhenov would have turned 100 years
March 22 to the famous Soviet and Russian theater and film actor Georgy Stepanovich Zhzhenov would have turned 100 years. The future actor was born 22 March 1915, in Petrograd on Vasilyevsky Island. His parents Stepan Filippovich Zhzhenov and Maria Fedrovna Shchelkina came from the peasants of the Tver province, they were from the village of Kesova Gora. It was in the village that the future actor waited for the revolution, the family returned to the city only in 1919 year.
The actor spent the first 22 of his life on Vasilyevsky Island. The Zhzhenovs family lived on the corner of the First Line and Bolshoi Prospect, in the house where the German church was located earlier. In the spring of 1930, George graduated from the 7 grade of the 204 of the Leningrad Labor School. This school was a physico-mathematical bias, in order to continue their studies in 8-grade, it was necessary to pass exams. But by the time George Zhzhenov already carried away by the cinema, theater and circus.
In the 1930 year, having borrowed documents from his older brother Boris, the future actor enters the acrobatic department of the Leningrad variety-circus technical school under the name of Boris Zhzhenov. In the future, he naturally admitted everything, and this joke did not affect his training. After a year of training, together with their fellow student Georges Smirnov, they were able to rehearse and put on a cascade eccentric number called the Chinese Table and even began performing in the Leningrad circus Chapito with the number 2-Georges-2 in the genre of cascade acrobatics. It was in the circus that the representatives of the Soviet film industry noticed. At the same time he was invited to star in Lenfilm and was offered the main role in the movie “Hero's Error” (1932 year), in which he played the tractor driver Pashka Vetrova. This film was the debut in the career of another famous Soviet actor Yefim Kopelyan. The director of this film was Edward Johanson. It was from this film that George Zhzhennov’s endless love for cinema began.
In the 1932 year, leaving a circus career after the film, Georgy Zhzhenov enters the actor's department of the Leningrad Theater School. But the love of the circus, as the first youthful romantic attempt at communion with the rich world of art, was preserved in it and then. The world-famous film director Sergey Apolinarovich Gerasimov was a professor of Zhzhenov today. Before graduating from college in 1935, he managed to play in a number of films: “The Crown Prince of the Republic”, “Golden Lights” and the famous “Chapaev”.
At the same time, George Zhzhenov and his family had to experience the whole rink of Stalinist repression of the 30 of the last century. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934, the elder brother of Boris Zhzhenov, who was a student at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at that time, was arrested on false charges of conducting “anti-Soviet activities and terrorist sentiments”. The arrest was made after Boris turned to his Komsomol with a request to allow him not to attend the burial of Sergei Kirov. Pointing at his old, broken shoes, he said: “If I go to the funeral in the Tauride Palace, I’ll freeze my legs for sure, what's the point? It won't help Sergey Kirov. ”
The Komsomol faculty decided to bring this case to the NKVD, after which Boris was expelled from the university and deprived of Leningrad registration. Boris Zhzhenov pestered the prosecutor’s office for a year, protesting against an unjust decision. He even managed to recover his student rights and return to Leningrad again. But later, in December 1936, he was sent a summons to the NKVD, from which Boris had not returned. In 1937, he was convicted of 7 years in prison for "anti-Soviet activities," and after 6 years he died of dystrophy in Vorkuta, overstraining his work in a coal mine. During the last meeting with his mother, he gave her several sheets of paper covered with small, neat handwriting, where he described in detail all the horrors of what he had seen and experienced in the dungeons of the NKVD internal prison. In the note he told about the complete defenselessness of those arrested before the arbitrariness of the system of investigation, as well as how they are knocked out of those under investigation by torture and harassment. Risking his life, he tried to describe the true state of affairs that was happening in the Soviet state security agencies.
Later, George Zhzhennov recalled: “Everything I read in the letter seemed incredible and scary. Shocked, I immediately, under the disapproving glances of my mother, burned these sheets in the stove. Mother said that I was doing it in vain and advised me to read everything properly, carefully, noting that what I read could be useful in life. If, then, I could only imagine how right the mother was and how prophetic her words would be. ”
After the conviction of Boris Zhzhenov, their entire family was sent to Kazakhstan. By that time, George was already a fairly well-known Soviet artist and he refused to leave Leningrad in Kazakhstan. Then he was unequivocally warned that if he did not leave, they would put him in prison. In 1938, during the filming of the film “Komsomolsk,” George Zhzhenov, along with other actors, traveled by train to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the way, he met an American who was traveling to Vladivostok to meet with a business delegation. He entered the compartment to the artists with a question about the route of the train. This fleeting acquaintance became fatal for Zhzhenov. He was used as a pretext for accusing George of espionage in favor of Western countries.
On the night of 4 on 5 July, George Zhzhenov was arrested on absurd charges of espionage. With the help of threats and blackmail from him were able to achieve recognition of guilt. Georgy Zhzhenov was sentenced to 5 years in prison by correspondence resolution of the CCA of the USSR NKVD. Back in the 1939 year, while in the transfer camp in Vladivostok, where the stages to Kolyma were being formed, it was said that there was a theater in Magadan, in which prisoners also worked with freelance artists. Zhzhenov repeatedly requested to send him to work in his specialty, but to no avail. In that theater, those convicted under article 58 were not taken.
Until 1943, George Zhzhenov worked in Dalstroi in gold mines. He worked as the only dispatcher in the garage of the district excavator station, but sometimes he also had to drive. After that, he spent another month in camps 21. During this time, fate was able to shine him with the artist and director Konstantin Nikanorov, whose friendship lasted until his death in the 50-s. Only 26 March 1945, for good work and good behavior, Zhzhenov was released from the camp. Until 1946, he worked in the Magadan Polar Drama Theater.
Only in the spring of 1947, the actor returned to the "mainland". He came to Moscow for an appointment to work. At the request of his first teacher in the university S. A. Gerasimov, he was sent to Sverdlovsk to work at the film studio of feature films. There, he began shooting in the picture of Mark Donskoy "Alitet goes to the mountains." However, he did not have time to finish them, in 1948, the studio was closed, and the production of the painting was transferred to Moscow, where Gergiy Zhzhenov was forbidden to live. Then he got a job in the Drama Theater in the city of Pavlovsk-on-Oka, where he worked for only a year. 2 June 1949, George Zhzhenov was arrested again and he spent six months in Gorky prison, after which he was sent to exile in Norilsk, where he worked as an actor in a local theater until 1953. Only 2 December 1955, the military tribunal of the Leningrad Military District twice rehabilitated George Zhzhennov. At the age of 38, the actor began his professional career from scratch, being fully justified.
After this, Zhzhenov managed to return to his native Leningrad and got a job at the regional drama theater, in which he appeared on the stage before 1962. He also played in the Leningrad Lensovet Theater. At the same time, George Zhzhenov resumed his film career. However, in the movie, his fate was rather difficult. For a long time, the actor could not reveal his talent for real. At the same time, he starred in the cinema quite a lot, but mostly he was given supporting roles (“On Far Island”, “Alien Relatives”) or in films that did not have serious audience success (“Squadron Death”, “Hockey Players”). The most significant work of the actor of those years were the roles in the films “Night Guest” and “The Corrected Believe”.
Oddly enough, but the first fame to George Zhzhenov came after a small role in the film of the great Eldar Ryazanov. He played a car inspector in the comedy “Beware of the car” (1966 year). Zhzhenov so well managed to get into the role that his character for a long time remembered the audience. Another very bright actor's work of George Zhzhenov was the main role in the dilogy “The Road to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn”, in which he starred with the famous Soviet actor Mikhail Volkov. In 1968, Zhzhenov finally moved to Moscow and got a job at the Moscow Council Theater. Over the years, he has played more 100 roles in this theater.
The real high point of the actor Zhzhenov on the movie screen came after the adventure film “The Resident's Error” (1968 year) directed by Venimin Dorman appeared on Soviet screens. In this film, Zhzhenov played the son of a Russian émigré Count Tuliev named Nadezhda, an experienced intelligence officer with extensive international experience. He was sent to Russia for a very risky and difficult task. This picture was such a great success that it was decided to remove its continuation. And already in 1970, the second film of the series entitled “The fate of the resident” was released. Even after 12 years, the character beloved by Soviet audiences returned to the screens this time in the film Resident's Return (1982 year), and in 1986, the fourth film of the series, End of Operation Resident, was released. So for almost 20 years, the audience with unrelenting interest on their part followed the turns in the life of the hero, which was brilliantly played by George Zhzhenov. For the film "Error of the resident," George Zhzhenov was awarded the prize of the KGB of the USSR.
Over the years of active creative work Zhzhenov managed to play about 70 film roles. Many paintings with his participation in the country enjoyed a truly popular love and became classics of Soviet cinema. Especially successful actor volitional, strong characters. For example, in the film “All the King's Men”, George Zhzhenov succeeded in a good role of Willy Stark. It is worth noting that originally another famous actor Pavel Luspekaev was planned for this role, who became famous for being the customs officer Vereshchagin in the film “White Sun of the Desert”. The filming began in 1970, but the death of the actor made the filmmakers look for a replacement. Their choice focused on the actor Zhzhenov, who coped well with this role, the picture appeared on the screens in 1972 year.
In the same year, the film “Hot Snow” was released on the Soviet screen after the novel of the same name by Yuri Bondarev. In this picture, George Zhzhenov played the role of General, General Bessonov. Although in its drama, this role was weaker than some of his previous works, it was for her that George Zhzhenov in the 1975 was awarded the RSFSR State Prize to them. Vasiliev brothers. To some extent, this was a reward for all his previous work. No less successful was the film “The Crew,” in which Zhzhenov played the role of commander of an airliner, Andrey Vasilyevich Timchenko. Among his other film works can be distinguished roles in the heroic drama of the Great Patriotic War, "Gateway to Heaven" and in detective novel "The cure for fear."
George Zhzhenov died in 2005, at the age of 91. 3 weeks before his death, he fell down unsuccessfully at home and broke his neck. The actor was taken to the National Medical and Surgical Center. Pirogov, where he was successfully operated on. According to Anton Serebryakov, the orthopedic surgeon who operated on the famous artist, the operation lasted only 50 minutes. While still in intensive care, George Zhzhenov, with the help of his wife and doctors, began to learn to walk again, he was even adapted for this special walkers. Doctors did not doubt that Zhzhenov would be able to get on his feet, even despite his age.
However, 4 December 2005, he was again hospitalized this time with airway inflammation. After a thorough examination, the actor was diagnosed with lung cancer. Doctors did not tell him about the terrible diagnosis, but insisted on the operation. Perhaps this would help George Zhzhenov defeat cancer and prolong his life. Doctors believed that the actor would be able to cope with the disease, but the body of the elderly actor could not stand it and December 8 at the 91-th year of life George Zhzhenov died.
Based on materials from open sources
The actor spent the first 22 of his life on Vasilyevsky Island. The Zhzhenovs family lived on the corner of the First Line and Bolshoi Prospect, in the house where the German church was located earlier. In the spring of 1930, George graduated from the 7 grade of the 204 of the Leningrad Labor School. This school was a physico-mathematical bias, in order to continue their studies in 8-grade, it was necessary to pass exams. But by the time George Zhzhenov already carried away by the cinema, theater and circus.
In the 1930 year, having borrowed documents from his older brother Boris, the future actor enters the acrobatic department of the Leningrad variety-circus technical school under the name of Boris Zhzhenov. In the future, he naturally admitted everything, and this joke did not affect his training. After a year of training, together with their fellow student Georges Smirnov, they were able to rehearse and put on a cascade eccentric number called the Chinese Table and even began performing in the Leningrad circus Chapito with the number 2-Georges-2 in the genre of cascade acrobatics. It was in the circus that the representatives of the Soviet film industry noticed. At the same time he was invited to star in Lenfilm and was offered the main role in the movie “Hero's Error” (1932 year), in which he played the tractor driver Pashka Vetrova. This film was the debut in the career of another famous Soviet actor Yefim Kopelyan. The director of this film was Edward Johanson. It was from this film that George Zhzhennov’s endless love for cinema began.
In the 1932 year, leaving a circus career after the film, Georgy Zhzhenov enters the actor's department of the Leningrad Theater School. But the love of the circus, as the first youthful romantic attempt at communion with the rich world of art, was preserved in it and then. The world-famous film director Sergey Apolinarovich Gerasimov was a professor of Zhzhenov today. Before graduating from college in 1935, he managed to play in a number of films: “The Crown Prince of the Republic”, “Golden Lights” and the famous “Chapaev”.
At the same time, George Zhzhenov and his family had to experience the whole rink of Stalinist repression of the 30 of the last century. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934, the elder brother of Boris Zhzhenov, who was a student at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at that time, was arrested on false charges of conducting “anti-Soviet activities and terrorist sentiments”. The arrest was made after Boris turned to his Komsomol with a request to allow him not to attend the burial of Sergei Kirov. Pointing at his old, broken shoes, he said: “If I go to the funeral in the Tauride Palace, I’ll freeze my legs for sure, what's the point? It won't help Sergey Kirov. ”
The Komsomol faculty decided to bring this case to the NKVD, after which Boris was expelled from the university and deprived of Leningrad registration. Boris Zhzhenov pestered the prosecutor’s office for a year, protesting against an unjust decision. He even managed to recover his student rights and return to Leningrad again. But later, in December 1936, he was sent a summons to the NKVD, from which Boris had not returned. In 1937, he was convicted of 7 years in prison for "anti-Soviet activities," and after 6 years he died of dystrophy in Vorkuta, overstraining his work in a coal mine. During the last meeting with his mother, he gave her several sheets of paper covered with small, neat handwriting, where he described in detail all the horrors of what he had seen and experienced in the dungeons of the NKVD internal prison. In the note he told about the complete defenselessness of those arrested before the arbitrariness of the system of investigation, as well as how they are knocked out of those under investigation by torture and harassment. Risking his life, he tried to describe the true state of affairs that was happening in the Soviet state security agencies.
Later, George Zhzhennov recalled: “Everything I read in the letter seemed incredible and scary. Shocked, I immediately, under the disapproving glances of my mother, burned these sheets in the stove. Mother said that I was doing it in vain and advised me to read everything properly, carefully, noting that what I read could be useful in life. If, then, I could only imagine how right the mother was and how prophetic her words would be. ”
After the conviction of Boris Zhzhenov, their entire family was sent to Kazakhstan. By that time, George was already a fairly well-known Soviet artist and he refused to leave Leningrad in Kazakhstan. Then he was unequivocally warned that if he did not leave, they would put him in prison. In 1938, during the filming of the film “Komsomolsk,” George Zhzhenov, along with other actors, traveled by train to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the way, he met an American who was traveling to Vladivostok to meet with a business delegation. He entered the compartment to the artists with a question about the route of the train. This fleeting acquaintance became fatal for Zhzhenov. He was used as a pretext for accusing George of espionage in favor of Western countries.
On the night of 4 on 5 July, George Zhzhenov was arrested on absurd charges of espionage. With the help of threats and blackmail from him were able to achieve recognition of guilt. Georgy Zhzhenov was sentenced to 5 years in prison by correspondence resolution of the CCA of the USSR NKVD. Back in the 1939 year, while in the transfer camp in Vladivostok, where the stages to Kolyma were being formed, it was said that there was a theater in Magadan, in which prisoners also worked with freelance artists. Zhzhenov repeatedly requested to send him to work in his specialty, but to no avail. In that theater, those convicted under article 58 were not taken.
Until 1943, George Zhzhenov worked in Dalstroi in gold mines. He worked as the only dispatcher in the garage of the district excavator station, but sometimes he also had to drive. After that, he spent another month in camps 21. During this time, fate was able to shine him with the artist and director Konstantin Nikanorov, whose friendship lasted until his death in the 50-s. Only 26 March 1945, for good work and good behavior, Zhzhenov was released from the camp. Until 1946, he worked in the Magadan Polar Drama Theater.
Only in the spring of 1947, the actor returned to the "mainland". He came to Moscow for an appointment to work. At the request of his first teacher in the university S. A. Gerasimov, he was sent to Sverdlovsk to work at the film studio of feature films. There, he began shooting in the picture of Mark Donskoy "Alitet goes to the mountains." However, he did not have time to finish them, in 1948, the studio was closed, and the production of the painting was transferred to Moscow, where Gergiy Zhzhenov was forbidden to live. Then he got a job in the Drama Theater in the city of Pavlovsk-on-Oka, where he worked for only a year. 2 June 1949, George Zhzhenov was arrested again and he spent six months in Gorky prison, after which he was sent to exile in Norilsk, where he worked as an actor in a local theater until 1953. Only 2 December 1955, the military tribunal of the Leningrad Military District twice rehabilitated George Zhzhennov. At the age of 38, the actor began his professional career from scratch, being fully justified.
After this, Zhzhenov managed to return to his native Leningrad and got a job at the regional drama theater, in which he appeared on the stage before 1962. He also played in the Leningrad Lensovet Theater. At the same time, George Zhzhenov resumed his film career. However, in the movie, his fate was rather difficult. For a long time, the actor could not reveal his talent for real. At the same time, he starred in the cinema quite a lot, but mostly he was given supporting roles (“On Far Island”, “Alien Relatives”) or in films that did not have serious audience success (“Squadron Death”, “Hockey Players”). The most significant work of the actor of those years were the roles in the films “Night Guest” and “The Corrected Believe”.
Oddly enough, but the first fame to George Zhzhenov came after a small role in the film of the great Eldar Ryazanov. He played a car inspector in the comedy “Beware of the car” (1966 year). Zhzhenov so well managed to get into the role that his character for a long time remembered the audience. Another very bright actor's work of George Zhzhenov was the main role in the dilogy “The Road to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn”, in which he starred with the famous Soviet actor Mikhail Volkov. In 1968, Zhzhenov finally moved to Moscow and got a job at the Moscow Council Theater. Over the years, he has played more 100 roles in this theater.
The real high point of the actor Zhzhenov on the movie screen came after the adventure film “The Resident's Error” (1968 year) directed by Venimin Dorman appeared on Soviet screens. In this film, Zhzhenov played the son of a Russian émigré Count Tuliev named Nadezhda, an experienced intelligence officer with extensive international experience. He was sent to Russia for a very risky and difficult task. This picture was such a great success that it was decided to remove its continuation. And already in 1970, the second film of the series entitled “The fate of the resident” was released. Even after 12 years, the character beloved by Soviet audiences returned to the screens this time in the film Resident's Return (1982 year), and in 1986, the fourth film of the series, End of Operation Resident, was released. So for almost 20 years, the audience with unrelenting interest on their part followed the turns in the life of the hero, which was brilliantly played by George Zhzhenov. For the film "Error of the resident," George Zhzhenov was awarded the prize of the KGB of the USSR.
Over the years of active creative work Zhzhenov managed to play about 70 film roles. Many paintings with his participation in the country enjoyed a truly popular love and became classics of Soviet cinema. Especially successful actor volitional, strong characters. For example, in the film “All the King's Men”, George Zhzhenov succeeded in a good role of Willy Stark. It is worth noting that originally another famous actor Pavel Luspekaev was planned for this role, who became famous for being the customs officer Vereshchagin in the film “White Sun of the Desert”. The filming began in 1970, but the death of the actor made the filmmakers look for a replacement. Their choice focused on the actor Zhzhenov, who coped well with this role, the picture appeared on the screens in 1972 year.
In the same year, the film “Hot Snow” was released on the Soviet screen after the novel of the same name by Yuri Bondarev. In this picture, George Zhzhenov played the role of General, General Bessonov. Although in its drama, this role was weaker than some of his previous works, it was for her that George Zhzhenov in the 1975 was awarded the RSFSR State Prize to them. Vasiliev brothers. To some extent, this was a reward for all his previous work. No less successful was the film “The Crew,” in which Zhzhenov played the role of commander of an airliner, Andrey Vasilyevich Timchenko. Among his other film works can be distinguished roles in the heroic drama of the Great Patriotic War, "Gateway to Heaven" and in detective novel "The cure for fear."
George Zhzhenov died in 2005, at the age of 91. 3 weeks before his death, he fell down unsuccessfully at home and broke his neck. The actor was taken to the National Medical and Surgical Center. Pirogov, where he was successfully operated on. According to Anton Serebryakov, the orthopedic surgeon who operated on the famous artist, the operation lasted only 50 minutes. While still in intensive care, George Zhzhenov, with the help of his wife and doctors, began to learn to walk again, he was even adapted for this special walkers. Doctors did not doubt that Zhzhenov would be able to get on his feet, even despite his age.
However, 4 December 2005, he was again hospitalized this time with airway inflammation. After a thorough examination, the actor was diagnosed with lung cancer. Doctors did not tell him about the terrible diagnosis, but insisted on the operation. Perhaps this would help George Zhzhenov defeat cancer and prolong his life. Doctors believed that the actor would be able to cope with the disease, but the body of the elderly actor could not stand it and December 8 at the 91-th year of life George Zhzhenov died.
Based on materials from open sources
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