Secrets of Sergei Yursky: Why the actor hid his real name, and why he was fired from the theater

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

March 16 could have turned 86 years old, a wonderful actor, director, screenwriter, People's Artist of the RSFSR Sergei Yursky, but 2 years ago he passed away. Most of the viewers imagined him as his most famous movie characters were on the screens - the charming adventurer, the cheerful great strategist Ostap Bender and the typical "man from the village" Uncle Mitya from the movie "Love and Doves". What he really was behind the scenes, only the closest knew - he was called one of the most private actors, he rarely gave interviews and preferred to remain silent about the secrets of his family, because at one time this brought them a lot of grief.

Jurassic family secrets

He was supposed to receive a different surname at birth - Zhikharev, and Yursky is the creative pseudonym of his father, formed on his behalf by Yuri. But the fact that the pseudonym invented by the theater director and actor became the surname of his wife and son was not just a whim. The Zhikharev family was noble, and his father later had to hide his origin. Even in his youth, while performing in gymnasium performances, he invented the pseudonym Jurassic for himself, and later decided to make it his last name.

Sergei Yursky was born in Leningrad, but after a few months the family was forced to move to Saratov, where his father was exiled for his noble origin. In the post-war period, he became the artistic director of the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. There was no housing, and the family settled in the circus, in the room of the former accounting department. For 5 years, Sergei grew up behind the scenes of the circus, but soon his father was removed from his post "for the collapse of ideological work, smuggling formalism into the Soviet circus and the wrong selection of personnel" (in fact, for the fact that he recruited Jews). The family returned to Leningrad, to a communal apartment with 27 tenants. For 3 years, his father remained unemployed, and the family survived thanks to the fact that Sergei's mother, a music teacher, gave private lessons, and then got a job as a teacher at a children's music school. Later, my father staged several performances at the Comedy Theater and became artistic director of Lenkontsert.

My father was an ideological person and was very worried about these events. Sergei Yursky recalled: "". Father died early when Sergei was 22 years old.

A meteoric rise in theater and cinema

Father discouraged Sergei from choosing an acting profession. At home, they staged impromptu performances, and his father told him: "". As a rule, Sergei did not succeed, and after school he entered the law faculty of Leningrad University. But already in the 3rd year, he realized that he was most fascinated by the productions of the Theater-Studio of Leningrad State University, and then he dropped out and entered the acting department of the Leningrad Theater Institute.

Already in his second year, Sergei Yursky began to receive an offer from leading directors and, while still studying, entered the troupe of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, on the stage of which he appeared for 21 years. One of the brightest was the role of Chatsky in the play "Woe from Wit", as well as roles in "Divine Comedy", "Three Sisters" and "Career of Arturo Ui". Later, the actor called his Leningrad period of life one of the happiest, because then he became a real star of the BDT, and director Georgy Tovstonogov trusted his acting instinct so much that he allowed him to choose plays and even offered to stage them on his own.

Yursky considered himself a theater actor, but the general public recognized him for his roles in films. He started acting at 22 years old, but loud popularity came to him at 33, when he played the role of Ostap Bender in The Golden Calf. In the 1960s. Yursky became one of the most sought-after artists both in the theater and in the cinema, his career developed rapidly and very successfully, and no one could have imagined that soon the actor would be “cut off the oxygen”.

The actor who "discredited the title of Soviet man"

The actor's troubles began after meeting the philologist, literary historian Efim Etkind, who participated in the struggle for Brodsky and kept Solzhenitsyn's manuscripts. Once in Etkind's house, Yursky met with Solzhenitsyn, after which the actor was summoned to the KGB "for a conversation." At first he was not approved for the role on Lenfilm, then on the radio they banned broadcasting programs with the participation of Yursky, canceled the pass to the Leningrad television studio, and in 1978 he was fired from the theater. For almost 10 years he became restricted to travel abroad.

Only in the 1990s. the actor told why he was fired from the BDT: "".

Briefly about personal

The actor did not like to share secrets, and answered all questions about his family and personal life: "".

The actor did not like to remember about his first civil marriage with Zinaida Sharko, about his second wife, actress Natalya Tenyakova, until his last days he spoke with constant admiration and love, but did not go into details. Their attitude to each other can be judged by one fact: in the most difficult times for an actor, when he was left without work in Leningrad, his wife decided to officially take his name. In the theater and in the cinema, she still remained Tenyakova, and according to her passport she was Jurassic. The husband dedicated the following lines to her:

There were only two women in his life, and he considered one of them to be his destiny: Two marriages and 50 years of happiness for Sergei Yursky.