Jan Fried and his faithful muse: How Arkady Raikin helped the king of cinema operetta find family happiness
Jan Fried and his faithful muse: How Arkady Raikin helped the king of cinema operetta find family happiness

Video: Jan Fried and his faithful muse: How Arkady Raikin helped the king of cinema operetta find family happiness

Video: Jan Fried and his faithful muse: How Arkady Raikin helped the king of cinema operetta find family happiness
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The names of all three participants in this story are probably known to all connoisseurs of Soviet cinema and theater, but hardly anyone suspected how they were related. Films directed by Jan Fried enjoyed immense popularity throughout the USSR - "The Bat", "Dog in the Manger", "Silva", "Don Cesar de Bazan" and others. roles in these films. And thanks to Arkady Raikin, there was a sharp turn in their lives …

Director and screenwriter Jan Fried
Director and screenwriter Jan Fried

The films that made him famous throughout the country were shot by Jan Fried only after 65 years. Before earning the fame of the king of musical comedy, he came a long way. His real name is Jacob Friedland. After graduating from the directing department of the Leningrad Theater Institute and the Film Academy at VGIK, he worked at the Lenfilm film studio, where he shot documentaries, and also released a children's adventure film. When the Great Patriotic War began, Jan Fried went to the front, fought in the flight unit and met victory in Berlin. After the war, he made several more films, but all-Union fame came to him only after he began working in the genre of musical cinema.

Jan Fried on the set
Jan Fried on the set

His first musical film was the adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. After its release on the screens, the first resounding success came to Jan Frid. At that time he was already 47 years old. But only 22 years later, popular love and popularity fell upon him, when at the age of 69 the director shot the musical film "Dog in the Manger" with Margarita Terekhova and Mikhail Boyarsky in the lead roles. And then one after another followed by musical films that consolidated this success - "The Bat", "Silva", "Pious Martha", "Don Cesar de Bazan".

Victoria Gorshenina and Mikhail Svetin in the film Silva, 1981
Victoria Gorshenina and Mikhail Svetin in the film Silva, 1981
Still from the movie Silva, 1981
Still from the movie Silva, 1981

Jan Fried had an unmistakable directorial intuition - in each of his films he collected a brilliant cast, while often revealing his acting talents from unexpected sides: the Solomin brothers, who rarely starred together and worked in other genres, appeared in The Bat as wonderful operetta actors, and in the film "The Road of Truth" played her debut role in the cinema Lyudmila Gurchenko. Thanks to Jan Fried, the comedic talent of the actress Victoria Gorshenina was revealed on the screens, who got episodic roles in the cinema, but in the fate of the director she played the main role.

Arkady Raikin
Arkady Raikin

Victoria Gorshenina was known as a theater actress - for 44 years she performed on the stage of the Leningrad Variety and Miniature Theater under the direction of Arkady Raikin. The famous artist did not welcome the participation of the actors of his theater in the filming and rarely allowed them to be absent from the film expedition, but he sometimes made exceptions for Victoria Gorshenina, and there were reasons for this.

Victoria Gorshenina and her husband Jan Fried
Victoria Gorshenina and her husband Jan Fried

Jan Fried and Arkady Raikin had known each other since 1934. Not long before the end of the war, Raikin spoke to military units in Riga. Upon learning of this, the management instructed Jan Frid to bring the artist and to them in the unit - they say, since he said that you know him well, prove it in practice! The director said: "".

Victoria Gorshenina and Arkady Raikin
Victoria Gorshenina and Arkady Raikin
Victoria Gorshenina and Arkady Raikin
Victoria Gorshenina and Arkady Raikin

"The sweetest blonde" was the actress Victoria Gorshenina. Going in search of Raikin, Jan Fried found a wife. They got married in 1945 and have not parted since then. With Arkady Raikin, thanks to whom their acquaintance took place, they were friends with families, and for 50 years of friendship they never quarreled. At the same time, there really was a reason for quarrels - Victoria Gorshenina was the leading actress of the theater, and Raikin was extremely reluctant to let her go to shoot. And while the husband lit the stars of other actresses, his wife remained in the shadows. She starred only in his last films, and even then in cameo roles, although it was they who brought her wide fame - this is Countess Eckenberg in Silva, Dona Casilda in Don Cesar de Bazan, Parnel in Tartuffe.

Victoria Gorshenina in the film Free Wind, 1983
Victoria Gorshenina in the film Free Wind, 1983

Film critics called her the queen of an episode of Soviet humor, and she herself did not worry that she had missed the chance to play the main roles in her husband's films - she considered her main business to help her husband. Jan Fried often discussed the upcoming shootings with his wife and always listened to her advice - she brought very precise details into each image. Before filming began, actors often gathered in their house to discuss roles and mise-en-scenes, and Victoria Gorshenina took an active part in this work. And she considered herself primarily a theatrical actress, and said about her collaboration with Raikin: "".

Victoria Gorshenina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Victoria Gorshenina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Still from the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Still from the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989

In the mid-1990s. Jan Fried and Victoria Gorshenina moved to Germany. The director said about the reasons: "".

Victoria Gorshenina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Victoria Gorshenina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Jan Fried and Anna Samokhina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989
Jan Fried and Anna Samokhina in the film Don Cesar de Bazan, 1989

In 2003, the famous director passed away, and in 2014, several months before his 95th birthday, his wife passed away. Victoria Gorshenina said about their extremely strong union in the acting environment: "". And the son of the famous artist Konstantin Raikin, who knew their family well from childhood, said in one of his interviews: “”.

Victoria Gorshenina and Larisa Udovichenko in the film Tartuffe, 1992
Victoria Gorshenina and Larisa Udovichenko in the film Tartuffe, 1992
Victoria Gorshenina and her husband Jan Fried
Victoria Gorshenina and her husband Jan Fried

Behind the scenes of Jan Fried's films, which have become classics of Soviet cinema, there are many interesting things left: Secrets of the "Bat".

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