Pavel Luspekaev: biography and creativity of the Soviet actor

Fate is often unfair to great actors. Someone plays in the most box-office and successful films, but can not get the coveted reward, which every year leaves for another performer. And it happens that the artist remains forever in the audience's memory, playing one vivid role. Such was the actor Pavel Luspekaev, more known to the viewer as customs officer Vereshchagin.

Childhood and youth. War

He was born in 1927. Children's years of the future actor were in the village of Bolshie Saly (now the Rostov region). My mother belonged to the Don Cossacks, my father was an Armenian. Before the war, the actor entered the Lugansk school, and then was evacuated with him in Frunze.

Pavel Luspekaev, whose biography is largely tragic, turned out to be at the front when he was 15 years old. He went to war as a volunteer and got into a partisan detachment, which participated in military operations. During one of them, Luspekaev was seriously wounded in the arm. The hospital began preparations for amputation, but the actor who came to himself did not allow it. The hand was rescued, but the soldier was not allowed to fight because of his health condition - he was sent to serve in the headquarters of the partisan movement.

Theatrical school. A family

After the war Luspekaev moved to Lugansk and entered the theater school. Teachers often praised him for acting. Here he found his love - a student of Inna Kirillov. After the wedding, the young family moves first to Tbilisi, then to Kiev and in 1959 to Leningrad. By the time they have a daughter, Larissa.

The beginning of the creative path. Theater

On the stage, Pavel Luspekaev, whose films were still ahead, was released in 1944 as part of the Lugansk Regional Theater Company. Then there were roles in the Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater. Even then the actor's repertoire was different. In 1959, Kirill Lavrov advises Luspekaev to move to Leningrad. There, the actor enters the Grand Drama Theater. For several years he was in a creative upsurge and shone on stage. But six years later, because of the aggravated illness and creative disagreement, he was forced to leave the BDT. Meanwhile, his talent was noted by Lawrence Olivier, who visited the northern capital. He called Luspekaev a brilliant actor and noticed at the same time that he had an absolutely unpronounceable surname.

First roles in the cinema

The actor's debut took place in 1954, in a little-known picture "They came down from the mountains." The second film, in which Luspekaev took part, was a great success. It was a scientific adventure film "The Mystery of Two Oceans". Unfortunately, despite the popularity of the picture, Luspekaev's role remained unnoticed. In 1956, he starred in the movie "Blue Arrow", which also had success with the viewer. But the role of the actor went again to the second plan, and he again remained undetected.

Disease

Even in the Tbilisi theater director noticed that with the feet of the young actor something is amiss. The military past and the student hunger life were affected. In one of the military operations, Luspekaev had to lie for a long time in the snow, and he got frostbite on his feet. As a result, at the age of 26, he was found to have arteriosclerosis of the vessels of the legs. The disease progressed. In 1962 she nearly cost the actor of filming in the movie "Capron nets". I had to go to the hospital. The doctors decided to amputate several phalanges of the fingers.

In 1966, the actor began shooting in the film "Respublika ShKID". It was a great success, as the picture promised to be successful. But the disease made me aware of myself again. Doctors told Luspekaev that he urgently needed an amputation of his legs to the knees. But the actor could not go to such an operation. This would put an end to his career. He offers a compromise - amputation of the toes. The operation was carried out successfully, but Luspekaev began to suffer terrible phantom pains of such force that he had to increase the dose of the anesthetic all the time. When the bill went to dozens of ampoules a day, the actor realized that now it is completely dependent on the drugs. He decides to give up the painkiller. For more than a week, he was in a fainting state, until his culture was not told to the Minister of Culture Furtseva. She, delighted with the courage of the actor, ordered to find him medicines and prostheses abroad.

The crown of the acting career is "The White Sun of the Desert"

Luspekaev played for his short life in 20 films. But the deafening success came to him at a time when he was already struggling to move. Despite the serious illness, the actor decided to participate in the shootings, although at first he refused. Thinking, Luspekaev put one condition - he will be removed without doubles. As it was then accepted, he had to pass the tests, and was immediately approved for the role. Moreover, it was decided to leave the hero of the picture name Paul - in another way it could not be named, Luspekaev got so accurately in Vereshchagin's image. Although under the scenario of the customs officer called Alexander.

He acted in 1968, after amputation of his feet, and moved with difficulty. The director, seeing his torment, suggested a variation of the scenery in which Vereshchagin would walk, relying on crutches, but the actor immediately rejected this idea. Luspekaev made a drawing of special metal stops, hidden in boots, which would allow him to move without a stick or crutches. With the help of such shoes, he could be removed, although not for long. But since the shooting took place on the shore of the Caspian Sea, the car was stuck in the sand, and part of the way the actor had to walk. His wife helped him to go, and then Pavel Luspekaev was resting on the beach, his legs in the sea.

Initially, Vereshchagin's role in the film was insignificant. But the director, watching the work of the actor, significantly expanded it, turning the customs officer into one of the main characters of the picture.

Luspekaev was proud of this role. The actor did not like to watch himself on the screen. According to the memoirs of his friend Mikhail Kozakov, with whom he went to the premiere of "The White Sun of the Desert" to the cinema as a simple spectator, Luspekaev was worried and worried that the film would not please him.

Leaving a life

April played an important role in the life of the actor. This month he was born, in it he learned what all-Union glory is. In April 1970 he passed away. It happened on the 17th. The actor was alone in a hotel room in Moscow, and died of aortic rupture. It was Pavel Luspekaev only 42 years old.

His last work was not the "White Sun of the Desert", as many viewers believe, but the film "The whole royal army." He managed to withdraw only in a third of the picture, and after his death, Luspekaev was replaced in the film by Georgy Zhzhenov.

Pavel Luspekaev: the actor's grave and monuments dedicated to him

Sadly, the Bolshoi Drama Theater refused to take the trouble to organize the funeral of a remarkable actor. The administration referred to the fact that it does not work for them anymore. Then all the expenses were taken by Lenfilm. Pavel Luspekaev was buried at the Northern Cemetery of Leningrad. For some time his grave was in desolation, until the Leningrad customs officers, for whom the image of Vereshchagin became the embodiment of the chief customs officer of the country, took up her device. Every year on their professional day they come here - it has already become a tradition.

Luspekaev's talent was highly appreciated, as it often happens, after his death. In 1997, for his role in the White Sun of the Desert, he was awarded the State Prize of Russia. Actor devoted several monuments. One is in Lugansk, the other is at the walls of the Kurgan customs and another statue is set on the border between Rostov and Donetsk regions.

In honor of the hero of the film "White Sun of the Desert" was named the customs ship, carrying the service now on Sakhalin.

Conclusion

Pavel Luspekaev, your honor, Pavel Artemyevich Vereshchagin, the head of the tsarist customs, - under this name the actor was remembered by the spectator. Let his other roles are not so bright and visible, we will remember him simply as the most incorruptible customs officer of the national cinema. It is not necessary to think that the actor was a hostage to one famous role - he left on the threshold of all-Union glory. If it were not for premature death, who knows how many memorable images he could still embody on the screen.