Crazy star of Oleg Dal: Disruptions of performances, refusal to shoot in "Crew", mania for perfection and marriage for one day

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

On May 25, the famous Soviet theater and film actor Oleg Dal could have turned 80 years old, but for 40 years he has not been among the living. His path was short, impetuous and bright: over 18 years in the cinema, he managed to play about 30 roles and 20 more in television plays, and many of them are now called masterpieces. There could have been many more, but the actor often refused to shoot, even when Ryazanov and Mitta invited him. It seemed that not only was it difficult for him to find a common language with those around him - he could not reconcile with himself. It was an eternal race for perfection, for an ideal, for the unrealizable - a race for survival …

Oleg Dal was fond of creativity since school years, but his relatives categorically did not accept his decision to become an actor. His mother was a teacher, his father was a railway engineer, and they wanted their son to choose a "serious profession" that would allow him to stand firmly on his feet. In addition, he lisped a lot, which is why he was not even accepted into the school theater group, and his parents did not believe that he could become an actor. They did not suspect that Oleg was secretly visiting a speech therapist and thanks to this, years later, he was able to get rid of the speech defect. And even when the whole Union found out about him, neither his parents nor his sister were happy about his success. One day, his mother told his wife: "" My sister did not understand why Oleg was acting in film fairy tales and told him: ""

Foreign artist

Dahl started acting early, and after the very first roles they started talking about him as one of the most talented, versatile and promising actors. At 26, he was already a star of the all-Union scale after filming in the films Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha and The Chronicle of a Dive Bomber. But even before that, he allowed himself to talk with directors in a way that even honored masters did not speak to them. Vladimir Motyl recalled that at meetings with directors, Dal behaved as if he did not need a role, and looked defiant: "" Nevertheless, Motyl risked approving him for the main role in the film "Zhenya, Zhenya and Katyusha" - and he was right: largely thanks to Dahl, the film became a cult.

In his work, Oleg Dal was a maximalist and perfectionist who did not know any compromises. He could start rehearsing a role - and then disappear from the theater if it suddenly seemed to him that everything went wrong. If, for some reason, the script did not suit him, and the role did not interest him, he refused to work even with the most venerable directors. Dal refused the role of Lukashin in The Irony of Fate, without even explaining the reasons to Eldar Ryazanov. The actor could not go to the set just because his suit was puffing up on him. In the film "The Adventures of Prince Florizel" he played the main role - the crowned person, the most elegant man in Europe, and the costume spoke of the opposite! To many, he seemed eccentric and arrogant, and only a few made out what was hidden behind it. Anatoly Efros said: "".

Dahl agreed to star in Alexander Mitta's film "The Crew" and even got down to work. It took 2 weeks of filming, and then the actor told the director that he could not continue filming. It turned out that among the friends of the actor there were those who graduated from the aviation institute, and they told him that a plane with a torn skin could not fly, and without a tail it would not be able to land. Dahl did not want to deceive himself or the audience, and refused to participate in the creation of an implausible "fairy tale for adults." Mitta urgently had to look for a replacement, and as a result, this role went to Leonid Filatov. And the first domestic disaster film became one of the most successful in the entire history of Soviet cinema! Due to the fact that Dahl often disrupted filming, the management of the Mosfilm film studio gave an unspoken order to impose a moratorium on the filming of an actor in any films for 3 years.

Not for honors and titles

In evaluating films and performances, Dahl was always too straightforward and did not choose expressions. Usually, if the role seemed uninteresting to him, he refused it immediately, but sometimes it happened in a different way. For two seasons, the actor appeared on the stage of "Lenkom" in the play "Choice" based on the play by A. Arbuzov, and then suddenly called this work "the most ridiculous concoction", and declared about his participation in the production: ""

He could quit the production a few days before the premiere, or even suddenly leave the theater altogether. Dal left Sovremennik several times, and after he finally said goodbye to the theater, he explained it this way: “”.

Although many directors and actors who worked with Dahl called him a genius, he never received any titles. He often went to creative meetings with the audience, and during one of them he was mistakenly presented as a people's artist. In response, the actor smiled at the audience: "". He was all, like a compressed spring, and began to apply himself to the glass, because he did not see any other way to relieve constant internal tension and overcome dissatisfaction with himself.

Negative charm

In his personal life, Dahl was just as unpredictable and impulsive. His first marriage lasted only one day, because he left his wife immediately after the wedding. The actor met the actress Nina Doroshina when, after graduating from the Shchepkinskoye School, he came to the Sovremennik Theater. During the filming of the film "The First Trolleybus" Dahl fell in love with a colleague, and her heart was then given to another - director Oleg Efremov. Her relationship with him was long and painful, they sometimes converged, then diverged, and she decided to marry Dal Doroshina in the heat of the moment in order to take revenge on Efremov. But he came to their wedding, grabbed the bride, sat her on his lap and said: "" Dal immediately flew out the door with a bullet, and this was the end of their romance with Doroshina. He could not forgive her even years later.

Despite his negative charm and appearance, far from the standards of male beauty, Dahl attracted women like a magnet. Lyubov Polishchuk said that on the set of any film, half of the group - from assistants to prim - was in love with him. The actor himself did not like excessive attention to his person, and once even threw himself into the sea to escape from fans. Director Yevgeny Tatarsky came to his hotel and was very surprised that wet clothes were hung everywhere. "" - explained the actor.

His second marriage with the actress of the same theater Tatyana Lavrova lasted only six months, although they formalized the divorce after 2 years, and he spoke briefly about the reasons for their separation: “”. It seemed that in his third marriage with editor Elizaveta Eichenbaum, he would finally gain understanding and peace, because all his acquaintances believed that she was the only person who could cope with him and come to terms with his difficult character. She saw in him something that others did not see: "".

Chronicle of a diving artist

However, after the wedding, he began to drink even more. Elizabeth told: "". The actor could give all his fee to a friend who asked for a loan.

Several times the actor "sewed up", but then again broke down and began to drink. And one day his heart could not stand it. In the early spring of 1981, Dahl went to Kiev for screen tests, drank in a hotel room, and then it was categorically contraindicated for him. On March 3, he was gone. He did not live 2 months before his 40th birthday. Someone said that a bad habit killed him, others were sure that his heart could not stand the emotional stress, but Edward Radzinsky was probably the closest to the truth: he once said that Oleg Dal suffered from one of the most tragic diseases - a mania for perfection, and it was she who ruined him …

He often expressed dissatisfaction with his partners: Why Oleg Dal did not want to act with Marina Neyelova in the film "Old, Old Tale".