How the carrot helped Mikhail Metelkin get a role in "The Elusive Avengers", and why he left the cinema

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

His acting career began at the age of 12, and has already ended by the age of 30. During this time, Mikhail Metelkin managed to play only 10 movie roles, but one of them turned him into an all-Union star - it was Valera Meshcheryakov from the trilogy about the adventures of the "elusive avengers". He could have made a brilliant acting career, but took up directing, and later completely decided to leave the cinema forever. How the fate of the actor developed, and what he does today at his 69 years old - further in the review.

Became an actor to skip school

Mikhail never dreamed of an acting profession. He grew up in the family of a military man, Major General Mikhail Metelkin, who at one time served under Semyon Budyonny. None of his relatives had anything to do with the world of cinema. The boy first came to the set thanks to a happy occasion when he was in the 6th grade. Later he recalled: "".

On the set, Misha met 14-year-old Vitya Kosykh, who also played one of the roles in the film. For him, these shootings were not the first - the audience already knew him from the films "Father of a Soldier" and "Welcome, or No Unauthorized Entry". The boys became friends, and this friendship largely determined the further fate of Metelkin. Together they starred in the film by Alexander Mitta "They Call, Open the Door."

Starring Role Thanks to Carrots

For the role of Danka in "The Elusive Avengers" Vitya Kosykh was approved first. But with the search for the rest of the actors for the main roles, difficulties arose - the students of theatrical universities looked older than the characters in the script. They were looking for young actors in circus schools and sports schools, because they had to perform complex tricks. For example, Valya Kurdyukova, who played the role of Ksanka, was found in the gym of the Wings of the Soviets club - at the age of 14, the girl had already become a master of sports in artistic gymnastics. But for a long time there was no suitable candidate for the role of Valerka the gymnasium student.

Then Vitya Kosykh asked director Edmond Keosayan to invite his friend, Misha Metelkin, to audition. Outwardly, he really looked like an intelligent schoolboy, only he turned out to be a cut below the rest of the actors. In order not to upset the guy too much, the director told him: “” And after that he continued looking for an actor for the role of Valerika. And Misha took this advice literally and decided to do everything possible and impossible to grow up in these couple of months, and the main assistant in this was … carrots with sour cream!

Later, the actor said: "".

The boys performed many of the stunts on the set of The Elusive Avengers on their own, and sometimes they were quite dangerous scenes. In one of them, Metelkin's hero had to fly from one roof to another using a ladder, and she stopped in the middle, and the actor was next to live wires. Fortunately, the film crew got their bearings in time: they pulled the net down below, and Misha jumped on it.

After the release of the film, the young actors turned into real stars and idols of teenagers, but for Metelkin, the taste of this glory was bitter. On the set, they cut his hair baldly, and the boy was very worried because of this: "".

The short film career of Mikhail Metelkin

"The Elusive Avengers" enjoyed such success with the audience that the director decided to shoot a sequel to the film. After 2 years "New Adventures of the Elusive" came out, after another 2 years - "The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Elusive Again". The third film was unsuccessful and became the final one in the trilogy. Metelkin combined filming in it with his studies at the Faculty of Economics of VGIK.

After completing his studies and serving at the headquarters of the Moscow Military District as a photojournalist, Mikhail Metelkin played several more episodic roles in films, and then decided to change his profile of activities. In 1974, he became the editor of the editor-in-chief of the television news agency Novosti Press Agency, and 5 years later he again entered the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography - this time at the directing department.

Metelkin played his last role in cinema in 1982 in the film I Don't Want to Be an Adult, but even then he was so fascinated by the directorial work that he no longer wanted to act in films. Over the next 10 years, he completely focused on his new hobby: he shot the short films "Companion" and "Unfinished Portrait", in 1982 he was hired by the staff of the Mosfilm film studio as a filmmaker, 2 years later he shot his debut full-length film "Freeze take place".

In the second half of the 1980s. Metelkin shot commercials, documentaries, and led editing master classes. Although famous actors (Donatas Banionis, Georgy Taratorkin, Irina Muravyova, Valentina Titova, Viktor Proskurin) starred in his films, they were not highly appreciated either by critics or by the audience, and Metelkin did not achieve noticeable success in the director's field.

Life after cinema

The changed reality of the 1990s. dictated her terms: because of the crisis in cinema, Metelkin was forced to say goodbye to him forever. He went into business and became a fairly successful entrepreneur. Subsequently, he was repeatedly invited to television to take part in talk shows, but he refused due to lack of time and unwillingness to make his private life public.

Since then, Mikhail Metelkin avoids publicity and does not give interviews. All that is known about him is that he is engaged in equestrian sports, leads an active and healthy lifestyle, and loves to travel the world. He does not regret the termination of his acting career, because in life behind the scenes he tried on even more images than in the cinema, and was successfully realized both in creativity and in business.

But his colleague continued to act in films, although he could not repeat the film triumph of his youth: Why Viktor Kosykh created the most striking images only in his youth.