The short and bright path of Evgeny Urbansky: Because of what the life of a movie star of the 1960s ended

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

55 years ago, on November 5, 1965, the famous Soviet actor, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Yevgeny Urbansky passed away. He was given only 33 years, but during this time he managed to become one of the brightest movie stars of the late 1950s - early 1960s. His sudden, ridiculous, premature departure not only became a tragedy for his loved ones, colleagues and fans, but also influenced the entire further development of domestic cinema, forcing directors to reconsider their views on the filming process and introduce new bans for actors …

That one day the whole country would know his name, in his youth neither he himself nor his relatives could dream. Yevgeny Urbansky was born in 1932 in the family of a prominent party worker, and 5 years later his father was arrested and sent to a camp near Vorkuta. Mother Eugene, as the wife of an enemy of the people, was exiled to Alma-Ata with her children. After the war, my father was assigned to work at a mine in the city of Inta in the Komi Republic, and the family moved to him. There Eugene graduated from high school. In those years, he was fond of sports, was engaged in acrobatics, and besides that, he was very fond of literature. He knew by heart dozens of poems by V. Mayakovsky and performed with their recitation at various holidays.

He was predicted a brilliant sports future, but after graduating from school, Urbansky entered the Moscow Road Institute, and then from there transferred to the mountain. But most of all he was carried away by classes in amateur performances. Only then did he realize that he wanted to link his fate with the acting profession. In 1952, Evgeny Urbansky entered the Moscow Art Theater School. His classmate Oleg Tabakov said that "".

While still a student, Urbansky began acting in films, and he achieved his first leading role on his own: upon learning that the director Julius Raizman had started filming the film "Communist", Yevgeny went to him and proposed his candidacy for the main role. The director decided to take a chance and approved an unknown student for the role of Vasily Gubanov. The first shooting seemed to him a real torment - it seemed to him that he was failing, he was constrained and lost in front of his partners on the set. Urbansky was sure that half of the episodes with his participation would have to be re-shot, but the result surprised everyone: after the premiere of the film in 1958, All-Union glory fell on the debutant. This picture in the USSR was watched by 22, 3 million viewers, and at the Venice International Film Festival she received an honorary diploma.

On the set, he met actor Yevgeny Shutov, and he invited him, after graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, to get a job with them at the Theater. K. Stanislavsky. On the day of the premiere of "Communist" Urbansky played his first performance on the theater stage. After that, his acting career took off. Filmmakers bombarded him with new proposals, but he was in no hurry to agree and gained experience in the theater, where he had up to 25 performances a month.

Only 2 years later, new films with Urbansky's participation were released - "The Ballad of a Soldier" and "Unsent Letter". And then they began to invite him to the main roles almost every year. In the early 1960s. he became one of the most colorful, popular and successful Soviet actors. His theatrical life was no less successful: for 8 years spent at the Theater. TO. Stanislavsky, he played 14 roles and became one of the leading actors. Already at the age of 30, Urbansky was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.

His colleague, actor Mikhail Ulyanov, said about him: "". Urbansky looked like a real hero, and took on the most difficult stunts on the set. It seemed that with his athletic background it was not difficult, but it was not only about physical fitness. If he was not able to do something, he studied right during the filming and coped on his own.

On the set of the film "Big Ore", where Urbansky played the main role, soldier-driver Viktor Pronyakin, he had to get behind the wheel of a dump truck. For safety reasons, it was supposed to be done by a professional driver, but the actor insisted that it be entrusted to him. Driver-backup Ivan Sushkov helped him learn driving skills, and after several such lessons Ubransky famously controlled the car. But in the final scene, he still had to give way to an understudy to perform a dangerous stunt - according to the plot, the car had to overturn from a height. Hero Urbansky died in the final. Unfortunately, this role was prophetic for the actor.

A year later, he was offered another major role in the film "Director", which was written by the famous writer Yuri Nagibin. The plot is based on the story of the creation of a new automobile plant in the USSR and a test rally on the sands of the Central Asian deserts. The director of the plant, Zvorykin, whose image was to be embodied by Urbansky, personally participates in the raid. In one of the scenes, his car was supposed to fly over the dune at full speed.

A special springboard was built among the sands, disguised as a dune. The professional athlete Yuri Markov was supposed to perform a test trick, who later said: "".

Urbansky was going to perform this trick on his own, but before that he got into the car next to a professional driver. Yuri Markov, who was driving, was not injured - even before the car hit the ground, he managed to group up, but the actor did not have enough skill. With a strong push, his head was thrown back, and the cervical vertebrae could not stand it. The actor at that time was only 33 years old. After the death of Yevgeny Urbansky, the chairman of the State Cinema Committee ordered to stop further filming of this film, and the film crew to disband. Director Alexei Saltykov fell into disgrace for some time. And this case forced filmmakers to reconsider the views on the participation of actors in dangerous stunts - when they were performed by professionals, the risk was minimized. This tragedy received such a resonance that after that the directors did not allow the actors to take part in stunt shooting.

Vladimir Vysotsky, who at that time just started his film career and took the first steps in songwriting, taking as an example the manner of performing songs with Urbansky's guitar, said: "". Dozens of colleagues and millions of viewers admired Urbansky's bravery and despair, but these risks turned out to be unjustified - he paid for a successful shot with his own life … Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote about him in his "Ballad of Perfection":

Years later, this picture with the participation of Yevgeny Urbansky was recognized as one of the best films about the war, but at first it was criticized in the USSR: Why "The Ballad of the Soldier" was banned from showing in big cities.