How was the fate of Suvorov's Vanechka from the film "Officers": why the young actor abandoned his film career

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

“There is such a profession - to defend the Motherland,” - this phrase of Marshal Grechko became winged after it was released in 1971. film "Officers", filmed on his initiative. Much has been written about the difficult fates of the actors who played the main roles, but the story deserves no less attention. Andrey Gromovwho played the boy Vanechka … Despite several successful film works, in the future he did not begin to associate life with cinema and reached heights in a completely different field of activity.

Like many child actors, Andrei Gromov got into the cinema quite by accident. He was a second grader when the stage directors came to their school to select a few people to star in The Yellow Suitcase. The applicants were shown to director Ilya Freza. The boys were asked to read a poem or a fable, but out of fright Andrei forgot everything he was preparing. I remembered only "Robin-bobbin-drum, ate forty people …". He was asked to read it in a way that was scary at first and then funny. And he coped with the task. Although there is a legend that the boy was made an artist … his protruding ears. So Andrey got his first role.

In "Yellow Suitcase" his partners on the set were venerable actors Tatyana Peltzer and Evgeny Lebedev. The boy was very surprised that they behaved like children: according to the plot, they climbed over fences and rode on the roof of a trolleybus. In addition, they constantly amused and encouraged the young actor to feel relaxed. This role was a success for Gromov, and when the film had not yet been released to the cinema, he was already invited to the next picture - the short film "Valerka, Remka +".

But the real popularity came to him after filming the film "Officers". The 10-year-old actor was approved without samples - director Vladimir Rogovoy saw his previous work. The boy looked so organically in the image of Suvorov's Vanya Trofimov that there were even rumors that the role was written specifically for Andrei Gromov. But in fact, this character was also in the story of Boris Vasiliev, according to which the script was created, long before the filming and approval of the actors began.

The director had a great responsibility - in addition to the fact that it was his debut work, the film was filmed by order of the Ministry of Defense. Therefore, Rogova had no right to miss the choice of actors. The audience had to believe from the first second that a real officer would grow out of Vanechka. And then there were no problems - the boy diligently fulfilled all the tasks assigned to him.

It was Andrei Gromov's finest hour. At school, everyone was proud and respected of him. But while he was missing on the set, he missed a lot of classes and was far behind. He was faced with a choice - either study or an acting career. And he chose to study. When he was in the ninth grade, he was again invited to shoot - this time he was offered the role of a prince in the film "The Princess and the Pea", where the famous actors Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Vladimir Zeldin, Alisa Freindlikh, Alexander Kalyagin, Igor Kvasha played. Despite the rare opportunity to work in such a stellar line-up, Andrei Gromov refused and continued his studies at school.

One of his classmates later said that Andrei's decision was influenced by a conversation between Lanovoy and Yumatov, which they heard once: the actors discussed the vicissitudes of their profession, admitting that roles are often given by chance, and not as a result of efforts or talent. Since childhood, Gromov had a strong-willed and independent character, and he did not want to put up with this state of affairs.

His serious attitude to his studies bore fruit: after graduating from school, Andrei entered MGIMO, and later defended his dissertation in economics. In the mid-2000s. he served as Senior Advisor to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN in New York, then returned to Moscow. The diplomatic career of A. Yu. Gromov is still developing very successfully. His wife found out about the acting past of an international economist only two years after they met and was very surprised. The whole family sometimes revisits films with the participation of the young actor Andrei Gromov.

But the fate of the performer of the role of officer Trofimov was completely different: what killed the actors Georgy Yumatov and Muse Krepkogorskaya