Behind the scenes of the film "After a Rain on Thursday": The Unfabulous Fates of Three Ivanovs from a Popular Movie Tale

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

35 years ago, director Mikhail Yuzovsky made a children's musical film "After a Rain on Thursday", which became one of the favorite movie fairy tales for millions of Soviet children. According to the plot, three babies - the tsar's son, the son of a housekeeper and a foundling, born on the same day, were reversed: the housekeeper put her son in the royal cradle, and Ivanov gave the other two to the robbers, and they all seemed to be living other people's destinies. Behind the scenes, the actors who played the three Ivanov lived their lives as if they were actually once forced to try on someone else's fate and for years to look for their own …

Gennady Frolov

The son of the cunning housekeeper Varvara, who changed babies and passed off her child for the tsar's son, was played by a graduate of VGIK, a 23-year-old actor of the Film Studio. Gorky Gennady Frolov. By that time, he had already managed to make his debut in both parts of his mentor Sergei Gerasimov's film dylogy ("The Youth of Peter" and "At the Beginning of Glorious Things"), based on the novel by A. Tolstoy "Peter the First", to serve in the army, return to the film studio and play 8 films.

In the movie fairy tale "After a Rain on Thursday" Gennady Frolov got the role of the most unpleasant Ivan, the spoiled, narcissistic and cynical Varvarin's son, in whom there was not a single attractive feature. But behind the scenes, the actor was the complete opposite of his hero - everyone called him a very decent and kind person. He grew up in the city of Elektrostal, in a simple working-class family, and from childhood was accustomed to work. Gennady showed the same efficiency and diligence in the acting profession. Although the heyday of his creative path fell on the period of the collapse of Soviet cinema, Frolov managed to find his place in it and attract attention with his bright roles. He was especially remembered by the audience in the images of very different Ivanov in the fairy tales "After the Rain on Thursday" and "We sat on the golden porch …", as well as the soldier Alekha in the fairy tale "One, two - grief does not matter."

At the age of 28, while filming another film, the actor contracted bilateral pneumonia. Despite the very high temperature, Gennady decided not to miss the shooting. There he became ill, he was taken to the first-aid post, but no help was provided there, he was sent to the polyclinic at his place of residence. Returning to Elektrostal, the actor could only walk home, and on the same day, January 27, 1990, he died. Until his 29th birthday, he did not live only two months. If Gennady Frolov had received timely medical assistance, perhaps it would have saved his life, and he would have played dozens more roles …

Vladislav Toldykov

The Tsar's son Ivan, who was replaced by the Barbarian son, was played by Vladislav Toldykov, a graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School, the same age as Gennady Frolov. The role of the calm and reasonable Ivan Tsarevich became the first in his film career and opened the way for him to film. But at the same time, his creative path was almost cut short, barely starting. In the late 1980s - early 1990s. he played a few more roles, and then the crisis in cinema began, and the actor was left without work.

The actor was very similar to his hero - he was called the same intelligent, smart and kind. However, like his hero Ivan, who had to go through many trials in order to win back what belonged to him by right, the actor also had to wait a very long time in the wings. For several years he did not appear on the screens and worked as a theater administrator. Toldykov got his next leading role after the movie only 25 years later! Of course, none of the viewers recognized Tsarevich Ivan in the character of Mikhail the hunter from the drama "To Live", but after that a new stage began in his acting career. Vladislav Toldykov won the prize for Best Actor in the film "To Live" at the Swedish Film Festival. After that, he received many new proposals from directors, and today the actor continues to appear in films and TV series.

Alexey Voytyuk

The role of Ivan the foundling found in cabbage was played by Alexey Voytyuk, the youngest actor of all Ivanov. At that time he was 20 years old and he was still a student at the Moscow Art Theater School. His Ivan was the most cheerful, charming and good-natured. And in life, the actor was very similar to his fairytale hero.

He made his film debut a year before filming in the fairy tale "After a Rain on Thursday", but the image of Ivan the Foundling became his first major role for him. But then he suffered the same fate as Vladislav Toldykov: he practically did not act in post-Soviet cinema. Alexey Voytyuk in the 1990s. performed on the stages of experimental theaters of Mikhail Efremov and Nikita Vysotsky and got a job as a layout designer in a publishing house.

And soon Tatyana Protsenko, known for her role as Malvina in the film "The Adventures of Pinocchio", played in her childhood, came to the same publishing house. Both then experienced the collapse of their families and were looking for themselves in a new business, not realizing themselves in the acting profession. They soon got married and remain together to this day. The fabulous finale did not happen for all Ivanov, but only in the fate of Alexei Voytyuk: in the new century, he again began acting, becoming a rather popular actor. At the moment, there are already more than 50 works in his filmography.

It is interesting that Oleg Tabakov played Koshchei in the movie fairy tale, and Marina Zudina played the beautiful Milolika, and on the set she did not think at all about work: Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina.