Why was the star of the movie "The Long Road in the Dunes" forced to leave the theater, to which he gave 35 years: Eduard Pavuls

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

He was one of the "Soviet foreigners", actors from the Baltic states, who could bewitch with his incredible talent and skill of reincarnation. In the filmography of Eduard Pavuls there are about seventy works, each of which is a small masterpiece. The audience remembers the actor not only for the role of Martha's father in the series Long Road in the Dunes, but also for the images that he embodied in the films The Son of a Fisherman, Theater, Krinitsa and many others. He gave the theater to them. J. Rainis 35 years of his life, and after he was simply forced to leave.

Conscious choice

He was born on July 7, 1949 in Jurmala on the left bank of the Lielupe, in the part that is called Valteri and is only three kilometers from the sea. As the actor later said in one of his very few interviews, he was born in a bathhouse, and his mother immediately said: "My son will be a great man, many great people were born in a bathhouse!" His mother Anna was Russian by nationality, she was fluent in Latvian, but she always spoke Russian with the children. Many were surprised how the children, running up to their father, chirped something in Latvian, and they spoke to their mother in Russian, freely switching from one to another. To the children, it seemed quite natural.

His father's parents also lived with them, and the future actor forever remembered the incredible aroma of jam that his grandmother cooked and allowed her grandchildren to eat it straight with a spoon, even without bread. My grandfather had been fishing all his life, this made it possible to put shoes and clothe children, and also not to feel hunger even in the most difficult years.

For the most part, the mother was engaged in raising the children, since the father struggled to provide for the family, worked as a firefighter, laborer, and fisherman. Edward was very fond of the sea, but looking at his father, he realized that he did not want to fish on an industrial scale at all. The example of his grandfather and father clearly demonstrated to him how hard and hard they have to work. But he did not want to part with the dream of the sea, and therefore decided that the navy was what he needed.

And then, during a short trip to Riga, the young man first appeared in the theater. It was a real explosion of emotions and feelings. Eduard Pavuls no longer thought about the sea. He longed to become a part of the magical world, which seemed to him the theater.

At that time, the family was rather skeptical about the son's desire to become an actor. They believed that Edward could find himself a better job. For example, to become the captain of a fishing vessel, like his younger brother. But the young man already knew exactly what he wanted to do in this life. He passed the audition with honor and entered the theater studio at the Rainis Theater, and later, in 1950, he became a full member of the theater troupe, where he subsequently served for 35 years.

Happiness to be needed

When the audience saw Eduard Pavuls in the lead role in the production of Romeo and Juliet, where he played along with Vija Artmane, they fell in love with the actor once and for all. Later, he will embody many vivid images on stage, and critics and viewers will note how organic Pavuls is in each of his roles, how wide his acting range. Colleagues in the theater considered him an "emotionally naked actor" who, in every role, loses himself and finds himself again.

In 1955, he first appeared in a movie, playing in an episode of the film "To the New Shore" by Leonid Lukov, however, the actor's name was not even indicated in the credits, his role was so tiny. His real debut was the picture "After the Storm" by Eduard Penzlin and Fyodor Knorre, but Eduard Pavuls played his first major role in the movie in the film "The Son of a Fisherman" by Varis Krumins. Then there were a lot of proposals from directors, but the actor was filmed only if the shooting did not interfere with his work in the theater.

And each role of an actor is actually like a small masterpiece. He knew how to play even with his eyes, it is not for nothing that the audience still remember the look of Jacob Ozols, Marta's father, in the film "Long Road in the Dunes", and his unsurpassed duet with Vija Artmane in "Theater". The last work of Eduard Pavuls on the screen was the film "The Mystery of the Old Council", where he played the Maestro.

Bitter resentment

And yet the main thing for the actor has always been the theater. In the 1980s, the actor began to get sick often, but he hardly thought that the management of the theater, to which he gave 35 years of his life, would treat him with such disdain. When he went to work after an illness in 1985, he received a rather serious blow. He was told that "the theater does not need disabled people" and was taken out of the state.

Eduard Pavuls felt insulted to the core. And then he wrote a letter of resignation. Pride did not allow him at the age of 56 to be a freelance worker for his beloved theater, to which he remained faithful for many years. He crossed the threshold of the theater only almost 20 years later, when the new management of the theater decided to arrange a party for two famous actors at once, Eduard Pavuls and Vija Artmane, who turned 75 in 2004. The actress, with whom he played in "Romeo and Juliet", and then in "Theater", personally asked him to take part in the event, of course, he could not refuse her.

Unfortunately, in the last years of the actor's life, his memory failed, he had difficulty memorizing large texts, and he was no longer invited to the cinema. Eduard Pavuls led a quiet life in his native Jurmala, surrounded by his family. He did not complain and tried to just enjoy life, although at times it was difficult for him.

A small acting pension was not enough for many things, but still he considered himself a happy person. After all, he has come a long way from a simple son of a fisherman to a famous and beloved actor. And he also lived for more than half a century with one woman, raised a wonderful daughter and was happy to communicate with his grandson and three granddaughters who came to him with his wife in Jurmala from Riga every weekend.

On July 14, 2006, the heart of the talented actor stopped, but the memory of his long and not always easy road in life, in the theater and in the cinema, remained.

Unfortunately, nowadays television rarely indulges viewers with a show. films of the Riga Film Studio, although there are real masterpieces among them.