Farewell to Oleg Tabakov: Legendary actor and director passed away

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

Today, March 12, 2018, the heart of a wonderful actor and director, a legend of Soviet and Russian theater and cinema, stopped beating Oleg Tabakov … Recently, his condition was critical, and on November 27, 2017, he was admitted to the hospital. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of doctors, it was not possible to save the 82-year-old actor.

Childhood Oleg Tabakov was hungry and difficult, but he still remembers this time with special warmth, because then next to him were the closest and dearest people - his parents. Everything changed when the war began. Father went to the front, Oleg and his mother were evacuated to the Urals. And after the war, his father left the family, which was a great shock for the boy. Mother had to work in two jobs, they lived in a communal apartment and often, apart from borscht, there was no other food in the house. Years later, when actor Oleg Tabakov received his first fee for filming, he spent all the money on gifts for his mother.

There were legends about his performance: he managed to play in the theater, stage performances at home and abroad, act in films - and all this at the same time. After graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, he starred in 40 films in 8 years, played more than 10 roles in the theater. As a result, at the age of 29, he had a heart attack. But even after that, he did not abandon the usual rhythm of life.

The undoubted merit of Tabakov is that he brought up more than one generation of successful artists. He is called their teacher by the most famous and popular actors of our time, including Yevgeny Mironov, Vladimir Mashkov, Sergei Bezrukov, Andrei Smolyakov and others. It all started back in the 1970s, when Tabakov founded a drama club for schoolchildren. Later he became the basis of his first year at GITIS. They say he had a special "nose" for talents, about which he himself said: "". When asked why he decided to start teaching, he answers: "".

Oleg Tabakov became one of the founders of the Sovremennik Theater, led by Oleg Efremov, who became his teacher and indisputable authority. After Efremov left for the Moscow Art Theater, Tabakov became the director of Sovremennik, and later the head of the Moscow Art Theater and the founder of the Tabakerka Theater.

Oleg Tabakov has more than once come under fire from journalists and theater experts: he was accused of being bourgeois and orienting the theater primarily towards commercial success. But he did not deny this: when in 2000 he was offered to head the Moscow Art Theater, the theater was going through hard times: Oleg Efremov was seriously ill, there was no one to do business, the auditorium was only 40% full. Tabakov set himself the task of returning the viewer to the Moscow Art Theater, he updated the repertoire with the play "No. 13" with Mashkov and Mironov in the lead roles - and for 10 years it was impossible to get tickets for this production, although the director was stigmatized in the press for their too high cost …

Tabakov did not react to such attacks against him - he believed that the main thing is the love and recognition of the audience, which is confirmed by the overcrowded halls and kilometer-long queues at the box office. He called himself "a person with a complex of usefulness", because he was confident in everything that he does. "".

Tabakov also had to fight off the attacks of the press in relation to his personal life, when in the mid-1990s. he left his wife, actress Lyudmila Krylova, with whom he lived for almost 35 years, to his student Marina Zudina. They met when she was only 16. Despite the 30-year age difference, the teacher and his student soon began an affair that remained secret for 10 years. But then Tabakov still decided to leave the family and married Marina Zudina. In this marriage, two more children were born - Paul and Maria. For this happiness he had to pay dearly: the children from their first marriage, Anton and Alexander, could not forgive their father and for many years did not maintain relations with him. Many years later, Anton still found the strength to understand his father, but he and his daughter never found a common language.

Marking his 80th birthday, Oleg Tabakov admitted that he was completely satisfied with the way his life had developed, and he felt absolutely happy. Although sad thoughts still sometimes visited: "".

All his life he remained a cheerful and cheerful person, because a sense of humor can save in any situation: Jokes and practical jokes by Oleg Tabakov.