Unknown feats of the modest hero of "Spring on Zarechnaya Street" and "Diamond Hand": Two Lives of Vladimir Gulyaev

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

This actor played more than 75 roles in the cinema, but most of the audience remembered the characters of the reveler Yura Zhurchenko and the charming policeman Volodya from the Diamond Hand. He was not offered the main roles - the type was "non-heroic", but behind the scenes he was a real hero, after all, before becoming an actor, Vladimir Gulyaev went through the war, was an attack pilot, made several combat missions every day, and only came to VGIK after he realized that he could no longer fly, he was discharged due to numerous injuries.

Legendary stormtrooper pilot

Vladimir Gulyaev dreamed of the sky since childhood. Back in the seventh grade of school, he wrote poems that in the future turned out to be prophetic:

At the age of 15, he enrolled in the flying club, and when the war began, he immediately went to the military registration and enlistment office. He was not yet 17 years old then, and he was not allowed to go to the front. For a year Vladimir worked as a mechanic in the Perm aviation workshop, in 1942 he became a cadet at a military aviation school, and in 1943 he was sent to the front with the rank of junior lieutenant of the Air Force. On the "flying tank" - the Il-2 aircraft - the attack pilot made 60 sorties.

A separate film could have been made about his years spent in the war, because he was an ace pilot with a sniper grip and incredible performance. He flew daily on missions, destroyed several enemy echelons, anti-aircraft batteries and ammunition depots. Gulyaev more than once fell under anti-aircraft fire, lost many of his comrades in battle, but he himself remained intact. In the very first battle, when the enemy managed to knock out all Soviet aircraft, Gulyaev alone remained in the sky and continued to fight, for which he received his first award. His exploits were reported in the newspapers. They say that Hitler promised a large reward for the head of the elusive pilot.

In May 1945, he took part in the Victory Parade on Red Square, and this day became the most important and happy event in his life. True, it was impossible to even dream of continuing military service in aviation - Gulyaev received several severe injuries, was repeatedly wounded, suffered malaria, and for health reasons in November 1945 he retired to the reserve. Life had to start from scratch.

Cheerful guy with a guitar

In 1951, Vladimir Gulyaev graduated from the course of Mikhail Romm and Sergei Yutkevich at VGIK and was accepted into the troupe of the Film Actor's Studio Theater. At the age of 26, he played his first film role and immediately began to receive many new proposals from directors. True, he was not offered the main roles - his appearance did not seem "heroic" enough for the courageous builders of a new life in the USSR. He dreamed of playing a pilot in a movie, and he was offered the roles of village boys, students, Komsomol members and drivers.

Gulyaev often played friends of the main characters - he also got such a role in the film by Felix Mironer and Marlen Khutsiev "Spring on Zarechnaya Street". His Yura Zhurchenko should not have aroused sympathy among the audience, because he knocked the steelmaker Sasha Savchenko off the "path of the true" and prevented him from studying, repeating: "The teaching, of course, is light, only on our street the lanterns burn so well"; “What is this science to you? You won't be a professor anyway. You only spoil your mood”. But at the same time, his frivolous and irresponsible sloven hero was not perceived as a negative character - the actor's natural charm was too great.

Yura Zhurchenko walked around with a guitar and sang vulgar couplets that were not spelled out in the script and were born on the set impromptu - he heard such songs even before the war in the courtyard in his native Sverdlovsk. He was a very cheerful, easy-going and good-natured person, he loved to joke, tell an anecdote or a funny incident from life, and later at the meetings of the actors of "Spring on Zarechnaya Street" with the audience, his performances were great.

At the zenith of fame and at the end of life

The role of Yura Zhurchenko brought the actor all-Union popularity, and in the second half of the 1950s - 1960s. Vladimir Gulyaev played dozens of new roles. Often he was offered images of policemen. In such a role, Leonid Gaidai saw him, who invited the actor first to "Operation" Y "and other adventures of Shurik", and after 3 years - to the "Diamond Hand". Many phrases of the policeman Volodya became winged: “Greetings to you from Mikhal Ivanovich!”; "Semyon Semyonich!.." Tall, elegant and fit, the actor looked very convincingly in the guise of a law enforcement officer - the military bearing had an effect.

In the 1970s. Vladimir Gulyaev continued to act a lot, his filmography was replenished with roles in "Eternal Call", "Earthly Love", "It Can't Be!" and others, and in the next decade there were fewer and fewer proposals from directors, and in 1992 he appeared on the screens for the last time. New characters came to the cinema, and about the modest and charming hero of the 1950-1960s. the audience began to forget.

In the 1970s-1980s. the actor wrote two documentary stories - "On the field airfields" and "In the air of" Ila ", in which he spoke about the exploits of his comrades in arms. In addition, he traveled around the country, participated in creative evenings and meetings with spectators, but in recent years they had to be canceled more and more often - the war seriously undermined his health, and in the 1990s. the actor was sick a lot. On November 3, 1997, Vladimir Gulyaev passed away at the age of 73.

The first wife of the actor was his classmate, with whom he later starred in "Spring on Zarechnaya Street": The triumph of the 1950s and the years of oblivion of Rimma Shorokhova.