Unknown Georgy Burkov: what was the real screen rake and drunkard

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

May 31 could have turned 86 years old Soviet theater and film actor, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Georgy Burkov, but 27 years ago he passed away. In the cinema, he got mainly minor roles, they were completely idiots, jokers, drunks and rowdy, although Burkov's acting talent undoubtedly had a much wider range. And those who knew him in real life said that this introvert and philosopher did not at all resemble his screen heroes.

Georgy Burkov was born in 1933 in Perm. Since childhood, he dreamed of the stage, as, according to his confession, "grew up on the opera and ballet of the Leningrad Kirov Theater, knew whole performances by heart." He graduated from the Law Faculty of the Perm University and the evening studio at the Perm Drama Theater. At the same time, he was constantly engaged in self-education and read everything in a local library. His acquaintances said about him: “It was only outwardly that Zhora Humpty Dumpty was, but in fact he was a walking encyclopedia. Without a diploma, he knew more than any other professor."

Burkov played on the stage of theaters in Perm, Bereznikov and Kemerovo. Once a theater journalist from Moscow saw him and told the chief director of the Stanislavsky Theater Boris Lvov-Anokhin about him. He wanted to test the abilities of the nugget actor and invited him to the artistic council. At 32, Burkov went to conquer Moscow, without special education and with a noticeable speech impairment. Nevertheless, the actor was accepted into the troupe of the theater.

Burkov ripped off the first metropolitan premiere in his life - a friend from Kemerovo came to him the day before, and they celebrated the meeting very vigorously. The theater director wanted to fire him immediately, but the main director stood up for the actor and asked to give him another chance. In the same theater, Burkov met his future wife, actress Tatyana Ukharova. And he almost ruined the wedding, for the same reason - he noted the event with a friend even before the ceremony, which is why he almost knocked down the bride. Ukharova later recalled: “When they said:“Bridegroom, you can kiss the bride,”Zhora began to fall on me! He is much taller than me. I supported him, the aunt from the registry office made crazy eyes, and he, realizing that he was falling, began to hug me, grabbed me in his arms. Now I am telling you this, but then I was not in a laughing mood. I ran away from my own wedding."

In 1966, Georgy Burkov began acting in films, and a year later, an epoch-making meeting for the actor took place with the director Eldar Ryazanov, thanks to whom the whole country recognized him. The phrases of his characters immediately diverged into quotes, on the screen he seemed like a shirt-guy, understandable, simple and accessible, but in life he was a philosopher and ascetic, indifferent to everything material, an idealist and a dreamer. As in movies, he was a great storyteller, but in fact, he preferred to spend time alone with books, especially as he got older.

In the cinema, he often played the roles of revelers and jokers, although in life he was a very domestic person. His friend Viktor Myznikov said: “I don’t know not so much a novel, not even a single light hobby. Zhora was not a walker at all. Family, Tanya, daughter - that's what he loved. I ate only at home, I hated banquets. He dreamed of Don Quixote and Hamlet, of serious dramatic roles that he really could do, but he was constantly invited to the secondary roles of idiots and drunks. He could drink with friends in life, but he was not an alcoholic.

Another fateful meeting was Burkov's acquaintance with Vasily Shukshin. Tatyana Ukharova said: “It is difficult to describe what connected them. It's like love, like a shot. One day he came and said, "I met a Man." There were many acquaintances, but there were no comrades in spirit. They could be silent together, one began a phrase, and the other was already finishing. Shukshin was surprisingly sensitive to Zhora. He understood him - the first and only one. Together they nurtured the idea of creating a new theater”.

The actor suffered from coronary heart disease, and the first time he was admitted to the hospital with a microinfarction in 1988, and two years later he was gone. He was only 57. Later, Burkov's diary entries were published, which contained the following lines: “Death is an abyss. It seems to us that death is ahead of us. And she is on the side, she is with us all the time. And each of us at any time has the right to it. Death is not an abyss in front, it is an abyss nearby, to the side, we are walking along it. And death is a step aside. We let those who follow us ahead."

Book "Unsummed results" by Eldar Ryazanov sheds light on many episodes not known to the public. In it, the director calls Burkov a nugget and a true intellectual.