Why the policeman from "Diamond Hand" has lost the meaning of life: Glory and oblivion of Stanislav Chekan

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

This actor starred in more than 90 films, but most viewers will remember him for the role of the police captain from the movie "The Diamond Arm". In the 1960s - 1970s. Stanislav Chekan was a very sought-after and popular artist, and in the 1980s. disappeared from the screens. His retirement from the cinema was forced, this test turned out to be even more difficult than the war years. The loss of a profession has become tantamount to the loss of the meaning of life …

Before becoming an all-Union famous artist, Stanislav Chekan has come a long and difficult path. He began filming at 24, and gained wide popularity only after 45 years. His parents participated in the Civil War and met in the First Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny, where both were cooks. But when Stanislav was 15, his father, on a false denunciation, was accused of intending to poison the soldiers and was arrested as an enemy of the people. After him, his mother was also repressed. She was German by nationality, her father was Pole, and in 1937 they were accused of espionage.

After that, Stanislav was sent to a children's labor colony, where he spent 2 years. This time was very difficult, but it was there that the boy decided on the choice of his future profession. The former actress organized an amateur group in the colony, and Stanislav first appeared on the stage, which determined his future fate. In 1939, thanks to the intervention of Budyonny, his parents were released, and the family was reunited. At first, Stanislav worked at a factory as a tinsmith, then his parents sent him to Rostov to a vocational school, but instead the guy took the documents to the theater. Of the 200 applicants, the head of the course, Yuri Zavadsky, chose only two - Sergei Bondarchuk and Stanislav Chekan. Later Bondarchuk moved to Moscow, entered VGIK and wrote to Chekan, offering to follow him.

His acting career could have started back in 1941, but then the war began, and Chekan went to the front. In the first year he was seriously wounded in the leg, for health reasons he could not return to duty and until the end of the war he performed in a mobile front-line theater. This wound then saved his life, but later it will also destroy it.

In 1945 he came to Odessa and for 3 years performed there on the stage of the Theater of the Soviet Army. In 1948 the actor moved to Moscow and got a job at the Central Academic Theater of the Soviet Army. At the same time, his film career started, but the audience hardly remembered the first roles of Stanislav Chekan - they were so tiny that his name was not even mentioned in the credits.

Stanislav Chekan played his first major role at the age of 35 in the film “The Wrestler and the Clown” about the famous wrestler Ivan Poddubny. The actor himself was distinguished by a heroic physique. He was born with a weight of 6 kg and grew up very large. Directors often paid attention to his textured appearance and offered roles corresponding to his type - mostly military ones. On the set, no one had any idea that this hero, after being wounded in the war, suffered from severe pain in his knee all his life.

His appearance on the set has always been a celebration - his colleagues spoke of him as a very cheerful, sociable, charming and friendly person. He could endlessly entertain everyone with jokes and found a common language with absolutely everyone. The friendships that he developed on the set were often mistaken for office romances. So, while working on the film "The Diamond Arm" he was credited with an affair with Nonna Mordyukova. They really treated each other very warmly, but next to the actor at that time there was another Nonna - his wife, who flew with him to the shooting.

When the film "The Diamond Arm" was released in 1968, even for those actors who played episodic roles in it, the finest hour came - the picture became a cult, the audience revisited it several dozen times, all the characters' lines knew by heart. It was said about all these actors that fate extended a diamond hand to them. It seemed that after that one could count on a brilliant continuation of the film career, however, for some reason, Stanislav Chekan was not offered bright roles after that.

In the 1970s. Stanislav Chekan continued to actively act in films, but the old leg injury made itself felt more and more often. On the set, he never limped, but behind the scenes he was already struggling to cope with the pain, his legs were giving up. Due to improper treatment, his knee was crooked; he could only walk with a cane. Either the directors were afraid that the actor would no longer be able to work, or in the new era of the 1980s. there was no longer a place for his heroes, but at this time he practically ceased to receive new proposals. Colleagues called him one of the most talented and versatile Soviet actors - and at the same time one of the most underestimated.

Once he told his family: “” At 64, the actor played his last role in a movie and disappeared from the screens forever. The last 8 years of his life turned out to be the most difficult for him - he really lost the meaning of life, having lost his profession. The ordeal of oblivion became the most severe for him. He often repeated to his wife: "".

In 1994, the actor was diagnosed with acute leukemia - the same disease that took his father's life. In the same year, at the age of 72, Stanislav Chekan passed away. His relatives believed that in fact, the reason for leaving was not even an illness, but the end of an acting career, after which he himself did not feel alive.

"The Diamond Arm" has become a cult film for many generations of viewers, and during the filming there were many curiosities: How the legendary smuggler comedy was filmed.