Algimantas Masiulis: biography and personal life

The other day marks the eight years since the death of "the main German of the Soviet Union". He died in Kaunas after a serious illness. In the distant 70-80s of the last century, both ordinary Soviet spectators and directors, who took pictures of the war without stopping , considered this Lithuanian artist the best performer of the roles of fascists and Germans of all ranks and suits. So, the hero of this article - Algimantas Masiulis, Honored and People's Artist of the Lithuanian SSR.

The first years of the life of the great Master

One of the most famous Lithuanian and Soviet actors of the second half of the twentieth century saw this whole vast world on the tenth day of July 1931. This happened in the small village of Surdeghis, Anikščiai district, in Lithuania. The boy was named Algimantas.

He was still very young when he took a very important decision for himself to become an actor. And not just an actor, but very famous. The boy was drawn to this profession. He was attracted to her in that there he could fully reveal his soul, all his emotions, his talent, his skill. Therefore, Algimantas Masiulis, immediately after he received a certificate of high school, becomes a student at the famous Panevezhsky Drama Theater. The young man diligently learns acting skills and reincarnation in the studio, giving it all his strength, all the time. So, gradually, trying to translate his dream into reality, Masiulis Algimantas Went to achieve his goal.

Theatrical Olympus

The future actor graduated from the studio in 1948. He was one of the best students in his release. Now in his luggage of knowledge there was a lot of experience and fundamental knowledge gained during his studies. The young actor was inspired by his first successes.

After receiving the diploma, Algimantas Masiulis Becomes an actor who became close to him, dear and dear to the Panevezhsky Drama Theater. There he worked until 1978, and then went to Kaunas Academic Drama Theater.

Fame in the Country of Soviets

It is unfortunate that of the huge number of adherents of theatrical art, only a small circle of theatergoers knew about the truly boundless talent of the most ordinary kid, a peasant son. But those few were looking forward to announcing that a trip to Panevezys, to the Miltinis Theater would be organized.

And already there, on the famous stage, embodying many characters, the beautiful, noble and stately actor Masiulis Algimantas played with inimitable mastery. As a rule, together with him, supporting the magical atmosphere of the theater, there were Donatas Banionis, Bronius Babkauskas, Vaclavas Bledis on the stage ...

With the light hand of Miltinis

Masulis was lucky to be in the team of Juozas Miltinis, a great teacher and theater director. It was this talented person who was able not only to discern the abilities of Algimantas, but also to develop them. Juozas with a purpose to recruit nonprofessionals in the troupe, teaching them then as an actor's skill, and the history of culture, good manners, foreign languages. It was a great school for a beginner with his creative way Masiulis.

Many years later, in an interview with Masulis, Algimantas Ionovich shared his memories, telling that he was in firm and unshakable confidence: there are no recipes in art. No mathematical formulas can explain and describe creativity. There are no rules, but there are requirements - moral and ethical. After all, the artist, even belonging to the caste of outstanding, has no right to humiliate a person or deprive him of the right to hope.

An ancestor of Lithuanian cinema

For the first time, Algimantas Masiulis decided to step on the set in 1955. We can say that he is the same age as Lithuanian cinema. First he starred in the film about Ignotas returning home, but his real film debut, after which he began to learn, took place a little later, just a year later. It was a short film with a strange name "Drowned Man", which became the first feature film created at the Lithuanian studio.

The tape, which is an adaptation of the novella of the classic Petras Zvirka, consisted of only one part. Algimantas was invited to the main role - Ionis Shatas - an official of bourgeois Lithuania. His character finds himself in a situation that seems to be taken from anecdotes. All the ambitious aspirations of Shatas fail.

During the preparation for the shoot, Masiulis decided to play in the manner of a tragicomedy. He worked on the boundary between grotesque and seriousness. At that time, Algimantas was one of the leading actors of the Panevezhsky Theater, he had a good school in reserve, and he played with a professionalism of a sufficiently high level. Since the release of this short film, Masiulis began to appear on screens with an enviable regularity. At first these were works exclusively in Lithuanian paintings, and from the mid-sixties he began collaborating with other studios.

"Fate" fate

Short film "Drowned" was a debut in the work of director Vytautas Zhalakyavichus. It was with him in tandem Masulis played one of his best characters. The actor has a mature acting style of performance, a very expressive type, a minimum of apparent performance costs with a maximum of sharpness of form. All this made Masyulis a vitally recognizable and characteristic hero of the world of predators.

Each of his hero has a sharp expressiveness with the greatest external restraint, the direction of each moment of life, a clear reasoning and the ability to build a role in the whole from the first to the last movement. All this plus a bright characteristic appearance for many years determined the "cine" destiny of Algimantas. On the stage, he shone in different roles, but on the set went in the form of villains. But, as you know, villains are also different ...

Intelligent villains

In jest, Algimantas received the nickname of the main fascist of the Soviet Union. And he himself dreamed of playing Don Quixote. But almost always the filmmakers saw in him quite "not our" man. It seemed to them that it was Masulis who would ideally play a Western spy or an SS man. And so it was. For some reason it was believed that he had a typical bourgeois texture: habits of the master, the face of a real aristocrat, the look of an intellectual.

In Soviet cinema, the actor was responsible for the roles of foreigners. A beautiful blue-eyed blonde with thin lips, a manly chin and very expressive, even slightly predatory nostrils. Such an interesting texture plus a slight accent doomed him to play in pictures about the war of the Germans, and in detectives from the lives of Americans - residents of the United States.

This is not surprising, because his debut was the role of a fascist officer. And yet all-Union glory brought to him the role again of the fascist Willie Schwartzkopf in the film "Shield and Sword". The director of the film Vladimir Basov suggested that he play his character in a different way, as was done in Soviet cinema, but in a totally different way. And he, thinking about the war, recalled that the soldiers treated the war in a disregard, but among the officers one could meet real ideological Nazis, educated people.

The last battle

Algimantas Masiulis, whose films have watched millions of viewers with great pleasure for half a century, played many interesting and diverse roles. In the movie, it was almost a hundred characters. On the theatrical stage - almost two hundred. And now, when this name sounds, his characters stand before his eyes: squire Trelawney from the "Treasure Island", Stufen from "The Engineer Garin's Collapse," Knight Guy Gisborne from "The Ballad of Valiant Knight Ivanhoe," Sherlock Holmes of the Blue Carbuncle, Lawyer Jeffson from the "American tragedy," Karl Weierstrass of "Sophia Kovalevskaya, Mr. Regan from the" Hearts of Three ", Dorman from the" Kamenskaya "...

His last work was the picture "Fritz and blondes." So, what he was in the frame of the film, and remembered Algimantas Masiulis.

The actor himself often recalled Soviet cinema and his past "German officer" with nostalgia.

Algimantas Masiulis: family

With his wife Grazhina, he lived for many years in Kaunas, working in a local drama theater. Funds in the family was not very much, because in Russia the stars are rarely remembered. They were helped by the daughter of Milda with her granddaughter Agne, who, having decided to continue the medical dynasty of mother and grandmother, graduated from medical school and came to work in the children's clinic in Vilnius. The son took part in the filming of "Fritz and blondes". This documentary became their joint work with the father.

Algimantas Masiulis lived a long and interesting life, during which he presented his audience with beautiful characters and heroes. He was no more than 77 years old. The heart of the great Lithuanian actor stopped beating on August 19, 2008.