Daughter of Mikhail Ulyanov biography personal life. Mikhail Ulyanov - biography, photo, personal life of the actor: People's Marshal. “There are enough good people”

20.02.2022 Thrombosis

Elena Ulyanova

(daughter of Mikhail Ulyanov)

Lessons from a great father

FROM THE DOSSIER:

“Mikhail Ulyanov, the great Russian actor. Ulyanov’s most famous film works are the films “Chairman”, “Volunteers”, “Running”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Voroshilov Shooter” and, of course, the role of Marshal Zhukov. He headed the Vakhtangov Theater for 20 years. He died in 2007 at the age of 79. The actor’s wife, Alla Parfanyak, is loved by viewers for her role in the film “Heavenly Slug”; she outlived her husband by a year and a half.

The daughter of the acting couple, Elena Ulyanova, is an artist, president of the People's Artist of the USSR charitable foundation named after Mikhail Ulyanov, which helps elderly actors.”

In the fall of 2012, the Moscow Vakhtangov Theater remembered its departed artistic director. In honor of Ulyanov’s 85th birthday, his colleagues performed one of the loudest and most talented performances of Mikhail Alexandrovich’s anniversary year - “The Pier”.

In the finale, where, according to the director's decision, there are usually photographs of members of the legendary theater troupe on a fluttering white cloth, this evening there were only images of Ulyanov.

Together with the entire hall, his only daughter Elena also paid tribute to the great actor. We have known her for a long time. That’s why I couldn’t help but ask her to remember her father.

We were sitting in the very apartment where Ulyanov lived for many years - in a house on Tverskaya, on which today hangs a memorial plaque in his honor. Elena Mikhailovna recalled, and I listened to her and tried to imagine what it would be like to be the daughter of an artist recognized as a great artist during his lifetime.

That my father is great artist, I guess I never understood. I perceived my father as a father. Even some of his artistic endeavors - working in the theater, acting in films - did not make any impression on me.

I watched almost all of his performances and, of course, all of his films. It was especially strange at the performances, because you sit in the audience, look at the stage, and the image he plays confuses you with the dad you know. Perhaps there was one performance - “Richard III”, a kind of legend of theater in Moscow. Moreover, he remained for many years precisely as a legend, as simply something higher in the field of theatrical art.

My father played Richard III. There the transformation was complete. And at some point I switched from the fact that my father was on stage, and no longer understood where I was.

It was the same with cinema. I always subconsciously had the idea that it was my father on the screen. I watched the film, and I kept scrolling it all the time - here he played well, but here it’s somehow a little strange. I was constantly editing it.

And then she always told him about her impressions. It was customary for us that my father constantly called me and my mother to all performances, to all films - this was mandatory. And then he listened very carefully, very attentively to our opinion. And he probably listened.

I have two of my father’s favorite films - “Running” and “Voroshilovsky Shooter”. And there is one more small piece from Dmitry Astrakhan’s film “Everything will be fine.” There, my father’s roll is tiny, but this is the famous piece when he, a cripple, clings to a truck and follows it to the music, with a banner. The whole country cried, and I also cry constantly, no matter how much I watch.

I began to feel a special attitude towards myself as the daughter of the great Ulyanov from a young age, as my dad liked to say. When I was still a very little girl, I was often sick and therefore spent time in hospitals. Whether my father was great then, I can’t even understand now. No, he probably wasn’t great, he was just an artist. But the whole ward hated me. And the chambers were huge, there were about twelve people lying there. And they lay there for a very long time - a month, a month and a half. And it’s clear that this was already some kind of team. And everyone hated me... Well, they didn’t just hate me, they envied me. “Well, of course, your dad is an actor! You guys are rich there!”

Although we were beggars, I swear. On the Patriarch's Ponds there was a small shop where they “threw out”, as they said then, liverwurst, and I stood in line for it. Well, we were, perhaps, not completely poor, but of very average income. And for a long time. I was already an adult, and still we lived somehow very modestly, because all these dacha-apartments - it was all state-owned, and no one paid for it then. My father’s car was a Zhiguli, all his life it was a two-piece Zhiguli, such a pickup truck. And he could change them for free.

That is, in Soviet times, money, of course, mattered, but not as significant as it does now. Yes, sometimes there were grocery orders, but most often it was me who was sent to the stores. And I stood in these lines, waiting for them to “throw me out.” I will never forget how a crowd stands at an empty counter and waits for something to be thrown out of the back room - a piece of cheese or something else, and it is not known whether you will get it or not.

Everyone kept to the acquaintances. The most important acquaintance in my life was a butcher from the basement of some grocery store. If you knew a store director, you were just a king and godfather to the king. You went to the butcher and got a piece of bone with meat.

Were we proud of our country? This is a question from today. There was no alternative then. That is, there was a country, there was a homeland, and we lived in it. And the thought that you can’t be proud of her... Well, this is the Motherland, this is the mother. This is how she is, mother, what can you do.

When I grew up, I went to a school for working youth. There was such a famous school number 127, which was located behind the now demolished Minsk Hotel on Tverskaya. There I read Bulgakov for the first time. I was 16 years old. At that time, the Ardis publishing house had already appeared - an American one, which printed books in Russian, Samizdat appeared, and banned books were passed on to each other.

And one time my father caught me. He came into my room, and I was reading “Heart of a Dog.”

I remember this scene very well. He comes in and I’m lying there reading. This was the dialogue.

What are you doing?

What? And why at night?

Well, they gave me the book only until tomorrow.

Bulgakov. "Dog's heart".

Who gave it?!

...There was no scandal, but my father said: “Keep in mind that I am a member of the Central Committee, and you can set me up, you understand?”

In general, it was such a very unpleasant conversation. We later remembered him, and I myself understood, even without talking to my father, that he was afraid for me. Not for yourself, but for me.

He was wildly afraid for me. When I began to grow up and understand something. And especially when I found myself in a different environment. Not in the environment of my special school for the children of diplomats, the French one, which was opposite the Vakhtangov Theater, but in a completely different environment - the children of dissidents, writers, who began to teach me something.

For me it was a completely different world when I went to a school for working youth... very working class. Many were on drugs and then died...

But what am I talking about myself... Better about films.

For most viewers, Mikhail Ulyanov is Zhukov. This is true. But my father was a great artist - he could play Zhukov at full strength, and it was so convincing that the whole country considered him Zhukov, and even Zhukov himself was considered Ulyanov. My father told me a funny story about how in some city they erected a monument to Marshal Zhukov with the face of Mikhail Ulyanov. And on Red Square, the stone Zhukov also somewhat resembles Ulyanov, and this is terribly funny.

But at the same time, my father could play Richard III - a crazy hunchbacked scoundrel, and could play some kind of collective farm chairman. He was simply a great actor. It is impossible to say “brilliant” about my father, but the fact that he was grandiose is indisputable. Great.

At home he was quiet, gentle, calm, and little talkative. Not closed in on himself, no - we communicated well, talked, but somehow... He never chattered, rarely had fun, was quite... not stern, but, in general, gloomy.

After his death I discovered notebooks. When I started reading, I was surprised to see how dissatisfied he was with himself. He was a star, a celestial being, he had all the orders - and every time he was terribly dissatisfied with himself. Every now and then I said to myself: “Misha, you didn’t do enough, didn’t work hard, didn’t do enough, didn’t think enough.”

This is probably why he was great, because his gift, undeniable talent, a certain overshadowing of the Lord, were combined in him with a hellish ability to work. When he started working on the role, he collected all the literature about his character that he could collect, re-read everything.

I remember he played Napoleon in the theater on Malaya Bronnaya near Efros. By the way, this performance was not filmed, only some photographs have been preserved. It’s a shame, because it was a grandiose performance, absolutely brilliant and completely unusual.

Well, when he started rehearsing the role of Napoleon, he took out some books from 1812, some rare manuscripts, studied it all. Have worked. When I came home, I had lunch and went to my office.

Yes, we went to the dacha, but in the car my dad and I learned his role. He drove, and gave me a notebook with written remarks. He told me: “Give me your cues.” And I threw them to him, and he answered. If I was wrong, I corrected him. And this continued all the way while we were driving.

If we went into the forest to pick mushrooms, he would walk and again learn the role. It was very funny. I told him: “You should pick mushrooms.” And dad answered: “Yes, yes, yes, I see everything.” And he himself suddenly began to pronounce the text, but no one would hear in the forest, but he was not shy in front of me.

So he made himself. With all his everyday gentleness, gentleness of character. Mom said about him: Misha is four “en” - no, it’s impossible, it’s inconvenient and indecent. This is in relation to life. And in relation to work, it was Marshal Zhukov.

My parents were legendary. Dad is Mikhail Ulyanov, mother is Alla Parfanyak, a famous actress, the film “Heavenly Slug” is worth something. Before meeting her father, she was married to Nikolai Kryuchkov, the most famous person. How was her father able to fight her off?

My parents had two closest friends in life - actresses of the Vakhtangov Theater Yulia Konstantinovna Borisova and Galina Lvovna Konovalova. So, Galina Lvovna Konovalova, who greeted me from the maternity hospital, after my parents left, became my best friend. That’s why I know all the stories about mom and dad from her.

In our family, because of my father’s reserve, it was not very common to pour out my soul in any way. We didn’t have such gatherings from the “Do you remember...” series. We were very friendly, loved each other, we had some kind of relationship, warmth at home, but everyone had to mind their own business. Even when I got older, I was not allowed to have any conversations between my father and mother. I was not told about any problems, let alone family secrets. I learned a lot from Galina Konovalova. In particular, the story of how a father met his mother.

Mom was then a star in the theater, a young actress, acting a lot, the number one beauty in the city of Moscow, dressing smartly in some incredible fur coats, wearing wide-brimmed hats. Today there are a lot of stars, stars. And then there were only a few of them, few films were released on the screen.

Mom starred in “The Heavenly Slug,” Mark Bernes was madly in love with her, there was some kind of inhuman passion there. Leonid Utesov looked after her, Alexander Vertinsky bestowed his attention. And she just flew through life. Her husband was Nikolai Kryuchkov, great actor. Basically, she was a queen. And then the father appeared. Mom, by the way, is three years older than him.

And it should be noted that dad came to Moscow from a remote Siberian village. Precisely deaf - I've been there, so I know what I'm talking about. Yes, dad managed to attend drama school. But he didn't cut it. And most importantly, I didn’t get rich. He was as poor as a church rat. In the literal sense of the word. He lived in a hostel and ate either parcels from home - my dad already told me this, or he went to the market with his friends, young actors, and tried everyone’s sauerkraut. I tried one, another, a third, a fourth - and, in general, I was full.

He appeared in the theater in some nondescript and single pants, some kind of shirt - I understood all this from the photographs only later. And I immediately fell in love with my mother. She, naturally, did not notice him. Well, who will notice the little gray mouse running around somewhere?

Some time passed. Galina Lvovna says: “Alla calls me and says: “Listen, come here. There, see that guy there on stage?” I answer: “Well, I see.” Alla asks: “And how do you like him? No way? And I live with him."

I don’t know what she saw in my father. They lived together for a long time before the wedding. And they got married in 1959, when my mother was already pregnant with me. How she understood his power, how she trusted his masculine reliability, how he conquered her - history is silent.

My father was certainly a faithful man. It was simply written on him in large letters from his youth that he was like a reinforced concrete wall, you could rely on him - something that now almost men don’t have left.

Were they jealous? I didn't see her. He kissed a huge number of women in the frame, Elina Bystritskaya was in love with him, Lyudmila Zykina adored him. Nonna Mordyukova was dying because she wanted to be Mikhail Alexandrovich’s wife.

Mom knew all this. But, firstly, she considered herself a queen, primarily internally. And therefore it seemed funny to her to be jealous of anyone. And then, my mother was an actress, she perfectly understood what a partner in the theater or cinema was. She was a very smart woman. Exactly - very smart.

But, of course, there were various gossip and rumors circulating among the people. I once caught a taxi and said: “I’m going to Pushkinskaya. There is a house there where the Lyra cafe is located.” The taxi driver turns around: “Yes, I know, the acting one, Ulyanov lives in it.” I answer: “Yes, probably.” And the taxi driver continues: “You know, he has such an affair with Borisova! They are together all the time!”

How should you have reacted to this? We laughed afterwards.

I didn't become an actress myself. Although I grew up in an acting family. Naturally, since childhood I hung around the theater and backstage. And for me, entering the theater was a normal path, a familiar path, and the thought of turning aside simply did not arise. Yes, I liked it.

When it was time to enroll, my father called me over: “Who do you want to be?” I didn’t ask that literally, of course, but that was the gist of it. I answer: “I want to be an actress, dad.” And he suddenly says: “You know, Lena, I think that you don’t need to be an actress.”

We sat in the office and talked. And since I did not have a fierce desire to become an actress, I began to listen to his arguments. And in the end I realized that my father was right. He didn’t just say, “No, I don’t allow it,” but with his characteristic wisdom - and he was a very wise man - with a thorough, logical approach, he very clearly laid out the whole argument for me: why I shouldn’t be an actress, why he doesn’t advise me to do this . And it was so convincing for me, 15-16 years old, that I agreed with him.

Once, after my father left, there was a program about him. Friends called me: “Turn on the TV.” I turned it on and found myself on an episode in which they talked about how Mikhail Ulyanov “ruined his daughter’s life.” To illustrate this absurd conclusion, the television crew presented the story of how I failed to become an actress.

Absolute stupidity. Yes, I became not an actress, but an artist. And I’m very happy about it. I did everything that was possible to achieve myself; my father never helped me. And all my life I say to myself: “Dad, thank you so much for convincing me then.” Because I would have made a very average actress. All my life I would be compared to my father and always not in my favor. And then my life would really be ruined.

They say that a bomb does not fall into the same crater twice. One actor with the last name Ulyanov is enough. I am immensely grateful to my father for that conversation and still bow low at his feet.

Which main lesson did my father teach me? Hard to tell. Because he didn’t teach me anything, and the main education consisted of conversations with him. He didn’t teach me to teach - do this, don’t do that. No, I was, of course, not a gift in childhood, and in my youth, I would even say, not a gift at all. And, of course, he sometimes raised his voice at me and said that I was disgracing his name. But I didn’t read moral lectures, there were conversations.

He called me into his home office and said: “Let’s start working on it.” He didn’t yell, didn’t scream, but gave a lot of arguments, going into some historical excursions, proving that I was categorically wrong in my behavior. And I understood everything...

When he was already leaving, it was a terrible moment in my life. I have been very close to my father all my life. There was less closeness with my mother, although we developed a wonderful relationship, especially in the second half of her life. And with dad there really was a blood relationship, some threads connected us, we understood each other without words. You can't explain this.

We fought his illness together for a long time. In the end, he ended up in intensive care, where I came constantly, they let me through without talking.

Dad had been unconscious for several days. That day I was at home and thought: I should go to my father. Well, just go and stand near him. And then suddenly Lisa, my daughter, calls and asks what I’m doing. “I’m thinking of going to my grandfather,” I answer. When Lisa was born, we began to call him grandfather. She called him grandfather, and my mother and I called him grandfather, and he really liked it.

And then Lisa suggests: “Let’s go together.” I was even surprised - my daughter generally avoids hospitals, she has a kind of fearful attitude towards them.

And off we went. They came and stood near his bed. And then I suddenly realized that he was suffering. And unexpectedly for herself she said: “Listen, dad, look - both Lizka is here and I am. And overall everything is fine, and your great-grandchildren were born.” It must be said that three weeks before, Lisa gave birth to twins - a girl and a boy.

“It’s okay, dad, we’ll handle it, go, don’t bother...” She said all this, we stood there, cried and left. And an hour later the doctor from the intensive care unit called me: “That’s it, Elena Mikhailovna, he’s gone.”

I don’t remember well what happened next. The first six months after my father’s death are such a blank sheet for me. She lived somehow, did something. And then the idea of the People's Artist of the USSR Foundation was born. And life seemed to begin again.

In general, after my father left, I have the feeling that someone is guiding me through life. This has never happened before, I think I did it myself. And now you feel as if you are floating along some kind of current, and someone is pushing you a little, correcting you, guiding you. And this is the story with the fund...

About six months after my father left, I ran into Alexander Filippenko at Patriarch’s Ponds at night. Well, hello - hello. He asks how I am. I answered that there was no way. And Sasha suddenly suggests: “Make a fund in your father’s name. He probably deserved it after all.” He said, and we ran away. And then everything started to turn around, and six months later I was the president of the People’s Artist of the USSR Charitable Foundation named after Mikhail Ulyanov.

I thought: my father helped everyone all his life. He had this piece of paper hanging on the wall in the front room - it was called a list of good deeds. And it was written there: Ivanova - to the hospital, Petrova - to the sanatorium, Sidorov - an apartment, this - this, that - this, tickets for someone, something else for someone. And so on ad infinitum. And he went and asked for everyone. Only, perhaps, he never married me, because that’s how he raised me. And that’s probably the only thing he always instilled in me: “You must be independent.” Well, I became independent.

When the foundation appeared, I understood that it should be artistic and help the elderly. Because in recent years, especially, old actors have been suffering, they often have incredibly difficult lives - I’ve seen it all. And this is a tragedy for each of them, because my father experienced a similar tragedy - not to the same extent as most people living now, but he still experienced it.

I'm glad I can be useful. Not for everyone, of course, this is simply impossible. But if I help at least someone in this life, make it even a little better, then it’s not all in vain.

And yet, through this thread of helping the elderly, I feel a connection with my father. And I think this connection is mutual...

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If Mikhail Ulyanov had been born in the Siberian village of Bergamak a year earlier, it is unknown how his fate would have turned out. According to terrible military statistics, children born between 1922 and 1926 were almost completely destroyed by the war. In 10th grade, the future actor received a summons to the military registration and enlistment office. But the officer who came out to the boys said: “Go home, they decided not to call up your 1927 year.”
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Fame came to Ulyanov thanks to cinema. Mikhail Alexandrovich has more than 70 roles to his name, including “The House I Live In,” “Volunteers,” “ Simple story"", "Chairman", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Running", "Theme", "Private Life", "The Master and Margarita", "Essay for Victory Day", "Voroshilov Shooter", "Antikiller", "Wapit Deer Hunting " But his heart belonged to the Vakhtangov Theater, where he came after completing the first post-war course at the Shchukin Theater School and remained there.
On the Vakhtangov stage, Ulyanov played Brigella in “Princess Turandot”, Seryogin in “The Irkutsk Story”, Stalin in “Lessons of a Master”, Mark Antony in “Antony and Cleopatra”, Caesar in “The Ides of March” and Richard III. For the last 20 years, Mikhail Alexandrovich has been the artistic director of the theater.

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Mikhail Alexandrovich’s daughter, artist and journalist Elena Ulyanova, talks about her father.

“FOR THE ROLE OF MARSHAL ZHUKOV, THE FATHER WAS BLESSED BY THE DAUGHTERS OF GEORGE KONSTANTINOVICH”

Elena Mikhailovna, now that your father is gone, Marshal Zhukov is played by different actors, but Georgy Konstantinovich’s relatives are unhappy and unanimously repeat: “It’s not him!” But no one seemed to have any complaints about the interpretation of the image proposed by Mikhail Aleksandrovich, who played Zhukov in two dozen films?
- When my father was first offered the role of Zhukov, it was very important for him to meet the marshal. But it turned out that it is not so simple. It seemed that Zhukov didn’t mind, but every time something didn’t work out - as if an evil fate was in the way. Either one of them got sick, or something else happened. And the last time dad was going to visit Zhukov, he died. And the father was blessed for this role by the daughters of Georgy Konstantinovich. Unfortunately, I don’t know them, but dad talked. He read a lot about Marshal of Victory - our library was filled with books about the war.
My father generally took each of his roles very seriously. He didn’t know how to do anything half-heartedly: they say, as I play, so it will be. When dad passed away, I found notebooks tied with string on the mezzanine - these were his diaries. I didn’t even know that he was leading them.

This was not a banal retelling of life events that “Sasha loves Masha, and Masha loves Petya,” but discussions about creativity and life. He analyzed the performances in which he played and the films in which he starred: “The Chairman”, “Running”, “The Brothers Karamazov”. Having chosen the most interesting, I published a book.

Mikhail Alexandrovich worked all his life in one theater, which, given the specifics of theater groups, is very, very difficult. How did he do it?

Of course, I am not privy to all the details of his theatrical existence, but I know a lot from conversations at home, from the stories of actors Vladimir Etush and Yuri Yakovlev. It's unfortunate, but true: theatrical life is hard - there is too much envy, anger and negativity in it.
“When I was very little, my father simply loved me - blindly, and when I grew up, he did everything to grow me into a personality,” 1964
I don’t want to say that my father was above these feelings and emotions, but he knew how not to succumb to them. Unlike other actors, he never supported intrigues, moreover, he hated them.

Many actresses who grew up under Ulyanov (for example, Masha Aronova, Marina Esipenko) say that he held them in the palm of his hand, like chicks: he protected them from theatrical negativity, did not let them fall, helped them “fledge”, so that later he could say: “And now , baby, fly!” Today, a whole generation of wonderful actors works in the theater (among them are Seryozha Makovetsky and Maxim Sukhanov), which, by and large, was raised by dad, being the artistic director of the theater. They remember him with gratitude, because there are no more people like their father.

As far as I know, he treated theater elders with no less respect?

“ANTOSHA TABAKOV AND I WOULD PICK UP A TRUNK OF GOODS AND TAKE IT HOME - WE CALLED IT “FEEDING THE FAMILY”

You are very similar to Mikhail Alexandrovich - admit it, were you a daddy’s girl?

One hundred percent! When I was very little, my father simply loved me - blindly and, of course, when I grew up, he did everything in order to grow me into a serious, self-sufficient person. And when this personality grew as a result, he no longer only loved, but also respected me. Moreover, over time, he and I changed places - he became old and weak, and I became strong. It was no longer he who dragged me on himself, but I him.

It is true that in last years did you even handle all his financial issues?

Dad was an impractical person and categorically did not know how to defend his interests.
Mikhail Alexandrovich with Alla Petrovna, Elena and granddaughter Lisa
When director Valera Akhadov invited my father to play in his film “Moscow Elegy,” I did not interfere at first - after all, I am not an expert in these matters. But when life knocks you over the head, you learn everything very quickly: when I saw that my dad’s day of filming was estimated at 100 (!) dollars, I realized that I needed to do something - times were completely different, even average actors received much more more. “Dad,” I asked him, “what is this?!” You are a People’s Artist of the USSR, a Hero of Socialist Labor, your name is worth very much.” To which he helplessly replied: “I don’t know how to bargain...”.

Then I called my friend, the former director of the Gorky Film Studio, we went to the producer, knocked on the table with our fists, although I don’t know how to do this. We managed to get Ulyanov a rate of a thousand dollars per day of filming, although, probably, it could have been more - for current actors these are not such large sums.

My father never chased money in his life - the material side was far from the first place in his life. And he was not a breadwinner in the generally accepted sense. I remember very well how in the 90s I stood in huge lines for liverwurst at a store in a nearby alley. At that time it was the norm, just like the fact that we ate sausages from toilet paper, and my mother cooked a saucepan for three or four days Lenten borscht because there was no meat. And also my good friend, the cunning man Antosha Tabakov, the son of Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov, and I,
With Ninel Myshkova in the film “The House Where I Live”, 1957
Before the holidays, we got into our Zhiguli (he had a V8, I had a Nine) and drove around all the cafes and restaurants where some directors we knew worked, filled the trunk with groceries and took them home. We called it “feeding the family.”

You helped teach your father the role, didn’t you?

He loved to do this in the car, on the way to the dacha: I gave him remarks, he answered them. I still remember “Richard III” by heart.
- How did your father react to what happened to people and the country in the 90s?

He took it all terribly hard, and his greatest pain was my daughter Lisa. She was then 15-16 - the most difficult adolescence. It was at this time that Stanislav Sergeevich Govorukhin filmed “The Voroshilov Shooter,” in which his father played himself. Although he didn’t play there - he just lived. Dad was terribly afraid that the same thing could happen to Lisa as with his hero’s granddaughter. In this film, he showed how scary it is when someone close to you is abused, and you can’t do anything. He, too, could not have done anything, despite the fact that he was Mikhail Ulyanov and a People's Artist Soviet Union. God had mercy on us, nothing happened to Lisa, but I remember how my father didn’t sleep at night and called 10 times a day: “Where is Lisa?! Where did she go?! She hasn’t come yet?!”

“WHEN DADDY MET MOM, HE WAS A RAGMAN - THERE NO SUCH CONCEPT OF A HOMELESS EXISTED THEN”

Your dad beat off your mom, the beautiful actress Alla Parfanyak - it’s scary to say! - from Nikolai Kryuchkov himself!

I know many stories from the life of our family not from my parents, but from Galina Lvovna Konovalova, an actress and later head of the troupe of the Vakhtangov Theater. Now she is 96 years old, and once she carried me out of the maternity hospital and was a friend of my mother and father all my life. My mother was very beautiful woman, Vertinsky, Utesov, Bernes looked after her. The first time she was married to the famous Nikolai Kryuchkov, with whom she starred in the film “Heavenly Slug”, but she women's destiny it didn’t work out with him.

When dad met mom, he was, to put it mildly, a ragamuffin - there was no such thing as a homeless person then. “Who was I to her? - Dad later wrote in his memoirs. - A Siberian poorly educated peasant who had neither a stake nor a yard? But his mother noticed him and, as they say, had her eye on him.

Galina Lvovna recalled how one day, when they were standing in the theater lobby, her mother, pointing to her father, suddenly asked her: “What do you think of this actor?” Aunt Galya shrugged: “No way, an actor and an actor.” And suddenly I heard: “And this is almost my husband!” Aunt Galya, of course, was stunned, but in 1959 they got married, and soon I was born.

Leaving a Soviet cinema star for an unknown actor at that time was an act!

Mom was a determined person with a serious feminine character. If she said: “Yes!”, it meant “yes”; if she said: “No!”, it meant “no”. There were no halftones or subtexts in her words.

With Anatoly Papanov, “The Living and the Dead”, 1963

But dad was extremely gentle. Mom jokingly called him a man with “four N’s”: no, it’s impossible, it’s inconvenient, it’s indecent. These were the main words that guided Mikhail Ulyanov in life. On stage he could play stern marshals and emperors, but in life he was absolutely trouble-free.
- Your parents have lived together for more than 50 years. Were these happy years?

Certainly. Although they, like everyone else, quarreled and made up. Once upon a time, mom gave up her acting career for dad: she understood that there could only be one accomplished actor in a family. And my father always dedicated poems to her every year on my mother’s birthday. He was not a poet, and each line was not easy for him - he composed them at night and suffered greatly.

In the last years of his life, he was very ill, and his mother was already very old, after all, she was several years older than him. Dad was constantly in the hospital. And as soon as this happened, my weak and frail mother pulled herself together, ordered a car from the theater and drove to him. But by that time she didn’t go outside at all - she simply didn’t have enough strength for it.

"Voroshilovsky shooter", 1999. “Father played himself in this film”

My father had Parkinson's disease, and such patients cannot lie down - this is certain death, he needed to walk a lot. I still have this picture before my eyes: a small, dry mother holds dad’s arm and, saying: “Misha, and - one, and - one!”, drags him along the hospital corridors... Formally, she outlived her husband by one and a half years years, in fact - for two months. After a severe stroke, which struck her shortly after his death, she never regained consciousness and soon died.

Did you manage to say goodbye to your father?

Fortunately, yes. I constantly went to see him in the hospital, for me at that moment it was the most important thing in life. And then a very strange story happened... In the morning, I suddenly and unexpectedly decided for myself: “I’ll go to my dad!” Although dad was already unconscious by that time and there was no need for this. My daughter Lisa immediately called: “What are you going to do today?” “Well,” I say, “I’m going to see my grandfather.” - "I'm with you". Lisa came to pick me up, she and I came to his intensive care unit and stood next to him. And I suddenly realized: “But he’s leaving...”. So suddenly it became scary and creepy! We said goodbye to him and left. And half an hour later the resuscitator called me and said that my father had left.

We always want to believe that our loved ones do not leave us forever. Is your dad helping you?

Not that word! My every gesture, my every movement, my every deed seems to be dictated by my father. Today I spoke with a journalist who asked: “Why are you working on monuments?” “You see,” I say, “my friend, it’s not me, someone from above is just pushing me towards this, telling me: “Lenka (that’s what my dad called me), but do this!” And you know, an amazing thing: everything always works out for me. There is money, there are people who come to help. “Lord,” I think, “someone is leading me!” And that someone is my dad.

Name: Mikhail Ulyanov

Age: 79 years old

Place of Birth: Bergamak village, Russia

A place of death: Moscow

Activity: theater and film actor, film director

Family status: was married

Mikhail Ulyanov - biography

For millions of viewers in his acting biography, Mikhail Ulyanov will forever remain Marshal Zhukov. And although the actor himself believed that in real life there was nothing in common between him and the commander-in-chief, this is not so: they were related by perseverance, unbending will and loyalty to their word.

In the Siberian village of Bergamak, Muromtsevo region, where Mikhail Ulyanov was born, the artist was always received as a loved one and more than once, in all seriousness, was offered the position of chairman of the collective farm. He politely refused, and then, despite all the objections (“I’m an actor, not a writer!”), the local library was named after him. Such is people's love! Over his long life - 79 years - the actor played many roles in his creative biography of a very different range - from strong-willed and tough leaders to petty peasants and everyday cowards. But I never even thought about becoming an actor...

Mikhail Ulyanov - childhood and youth

The unkind Siberian climate determined both the education system and the character of the children, who stood stronger on skis than on their feet, knew how to knock cones off tall cedars in one or two seconds, played with horses carved out of wood and never whined. Mishka Ulyanov's father ran a small woodworking artel, and his mother took care of the house and children - in addition to her son, her daughter Margarita grew up in the family. The family moved from village to village until they settled in the small town of Tara. There was no cultural entertainment, much less theater, there. Perhaps a small cinema where they showed the same film a hundred times. But the boys watched it with pleasure, experienced the whole action step by step, as if they were seeing it for the first time...

Misha turned thirteen when the war began. My father went to the front, was a political instructor, and was seriously wounded. In the 10th grade, Mikhail received a summons from the military registration and enlistment office, but it was soon decided that young men of his year of birth were not conscripted to the front. Lucky... An entire generation of guys just a year or two older than Ulyanov, who went to defend their homeland, was wiped out almost completely by the war.

During the war years, many theaters were evacuated to Siberia. When Mikhail first came to the performance, he was amazed. It's not even a movie, but much better! The actors are real, alive - here they are, in front of you, you can touch... Ulyanov enrolled in the school drama club and began participating in performances. A short, thin teenager with hungry eyes had to play an old man, but the more difficult the task, the more interesting it was. The head of the studio noticed Ulyanov’s talent and advised him to go to theater school after school.

Mikhail Ulyanov - studies

This is how Misha ended up in Omsk. In his pocket was a letter of recommendation to the head of the regional theater, and among his belongings there was a bag of potatoes - all that his mother was able to get. For two years, Ulyanov studied in a studio at the theater, appearing on stage only as an extra. The thought of going to the front, like his father, did not leave him, and Mikhail enrolled in a fighter pilot school. Fortunately, by that time the war was over...

To make ends meet, he needed a part-time job, and his friends helped him get a job as a radio announcer. There Mikhail learned to work with a microphone and control his voice - first youthfully sonorous, then bewitchingly muffled. Few people know that the actor achieved the “trademark” Ulyanovsk hoarseness in his voice himself: on frosty evenings he went out onto the balcony and screamed at the top of his lungs. The neighbors were going to write a statement to the local police officer, but when they learned that it was a young announcer rehearsing, they immediately calmed down.

The father who returned from the front declared that his son had nothing to do in Omsk - if he had talent, he should go to conquer the capital. However, Mikhail failed the entrance exams to both the Shchepkinsky School and the studio at the Moscow Art Theater. Don't return home with such shame!

Ulyanov was walking along Arbat, immersed in gloomy thoughts, when someone called out to him. It turned out to be a friend from Omsk. Having learned about the troubles of his fellow countryman, a friend advised him to apply to the Shchukin School at the Vakhtangov Theater, where they were just recruiting the first post-war course. The school was evacuated to Siberia during the war, so the Omsk boy would not be turned away there. And sure enough, they accepted it! “Fate was favorable to me,” Mikhail Ulyanov wrote in his memoirs about his biography. “And if I were from Khabarovsk or Ufa, I would definitely get turned away...”

Mikhail Ulyanov - theater

Graduates of the school had a direct path to the Vakhtangov Theater, even if at first to the crowd. The first work in Ulyanov’s biography on the big stage was the play “Fortress on the Volga,” where he was offered to play Kirov instead of a sick actor. Mikhail was at a loss: he could handle the dramatic part, but what to do with the appearance? A skinny neck, sunken cheeks, and a figure emaciated by post-war and student hunger alienated him from the image of a stocky and well-fed Soviet political instructor.

They even invited a make-up artist from television for him, who applied a huge amount of make-up. From glued cotton wool he built the artist’s cheeks, forehead and cheekbones, from under which small eyes were barely visible - as a result, Ulyanov seemed like a chipmunk. It was difficult to play in such a mask: the skin sweated and itched. To top it all off, right in the middle of the performance, all the glued parts came off the head and stuck out like huge ears.

The theater director was rushing about behind the scenes, uttering not at all intelligent words. But Siberian endurance allowed Ulyanov to finish the scene, quietly tear off his “ears” and continue the performance as a skinny young man - Kirov - to the great surprise of the audience. Of course, the next day, abusive reviews and statements appeared in the newspapers that the actor Ulyanov had not yet matured to such serious roles. Mikhail no longer wanted anything - neither big roles, nor an acting career. But time passed and everything was forgotten...

Mikhail Ulyanov - personal life

While still at the theater school, Mikhail began a long and serious affair with a classmate, future actress Nina Nekhlopochenko. But after graduation, the lovers were separated by kilometers: Ulyanov remained in the capital, and his bride returned to her homeland in Odessa. Considering himself a serious man and a monogamous man, Mikhail Ulyanov did not start any relationship for a long time until he fell in love. I visited my friend on the set of the film “Heavenly Slug” and saw the most beautiful woman in the world - Alla Parfanyak, who plays the journalist Valya Petrova. Unfortunately for him, the beautiful Allochka was already married. Yes, not for anyone, but for the performer of the main role of Major Bulochkin - Nikolai Kryuchkov, and the couple had a son.

For four years, Ulyanov unobtrusively courted Parfanyak, but did not insist on anything: he did not want to break up the family. And one day, as he later admitted to friends, a revelation appeared to him. He returned from an acting party very tipsy - so much so that he doesn’t remember how he ended up lying on the roadway. He woke up, and next to his foot was the wheel of a tram that had miraculously stopped. And the actor’s first thought was: “That’s it, it’s time to propose to Alla!”

To the surprise of many, Parfanyak agreed to become his wife and, taking her son, left her star husband. In the same year, she gave birth to Ulyanov’s only daughter, Lenochka. They began to live in the tiny apartment of Alla’s parents. The personal life of Ulyanov and Parfanyak lasted almost half a century.

He became not only a caring husband, but also a reverent father. He doted on his Lenochka! I chose dresses and toys in stores myself. And when Lenochka grew up, he transferred all his love and tenderness to his granddaughter Lizonka. He spent hours crawling on the floor with her, playing with dolls and blocks.

Ulyanov, like many prominent actors in his biography, was often credited with having affairs with his film partners: Irina Kupchenko, Yulia Borisova and others. But Alla Petrovna was confident in her wife and even joked about this: “If I’m gone, it would be better for Misha to marry his first love, Nina Nekhlopochenko. She’s a Ukrainian and cooks well!” Ulyanov gave no reasons for jealousy. Everyone knew that he adored his wife. For every Alla’s birthday, he composed poems in her honor: he found rhymes with difficulty, suffered at night, but did not change the tradition. However, living together Ulyanova and Parfanyak were still not completely smooth.

Mikhail Ulyanov - drunkenness

For many years of his biography, Mikhail Ulyanov, by his own admission, drank, drank and drank... Even his meeting with Alla and the birth of his daughter saved him from the addiction only by a short time. At first he justified himself: grueling work in the theater as an actor, director, and then director required stress relief. In addition, he was an active public figure, a deputy, and held high positions in the Union of Cinematographers and the Union of Theater Workers. And there are banquets and celebrations. And in good company, how can you not drink?.. His colleague and friend warned: “Misha, don’t drink! It’s okay for others, but you can’t!” But Ulyanov listened to the advice, agreed - and drank again.

The wife suffered greatly from Ulyanov’s addiction. After all, alcohol was the reason for her divorce from her first husband: she saw how vodka turns a respected person famous actor into an animal. Something had to be done. One day, when Ulyanov returned home drunk again, Alla opened the window, stood on the windowsill (and they lived on the eighth floor) and shouted: “Choose - either vodka or me!” There was so much determination in her eyes and voice that Mikhail immediately sobered up. He swore that he would stop, and he kept his word: from that day on, he never took another drop into his mouth. It was the same with tobacco: for the sake of my family I quit smoking one day.

In his biography, the actor wrote that it was the willpower and support of his wife that saved not only his acting career, but also his life: “Alla extended her hand... pulled me out of the whirlpool at the moment when I was already blowing bubbles and almost stopped fighting for myself . Many then gave up on me, saying that the guy had disappeared. And indeed, a tragic end came - I was kicked out of the theater for my cheerful life. But then Alla raised her comrades to their feet and made them ask for me...”

Mikhail Ulyanov - another life

So the actor returned to the stage of theater and cinema to delight us strong works in the films “Volunteers”, “A Simple Story”, “Chairman”, “The Living and the Dead”, “Blockade”, “Liberation”, “Voroshilov Shooter” and many others. Seven times Ulyanov was assigned to play the role of Lenin, and twenty-two - Marshal Zhukov.

Despite his rich biography, high positions, numerous awards and prizes, Mikhail Ulyanov never managed to save a lot of money throughout his life. A very mediocre apartment in the center of Moscow and a modest dacha were all his fees were enough for. Savings went into default. Together with his wife, Mikhail Alexandrovich went on tour to earn pennies, but he was never able to demand decent payment for his work. Many directors took advantage of this and “threw” it. But the actor was always ready to help others.

His daughter Elena recalls: “Few managed to force Ulyanov to do anything. But all you had to do was ask, cry into your vest - and now he, with his charismatic face, goes to get someone an apartment, someone a car, someone a role. But for yourself, it’s indecent. Mom called him "The Four Ns" - No, Can't, Inconvenient, Indecent. He couldn't refuse anyone. I didn't do anything for myself. As a result, he and his mother lived their entire lives in their disgusting apartment on Pushkinskaya Square.”

Mikhail Ulyanov - recent years

Mikhail Alexandrovich’s health was seriously failing him - he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but he was not released from roles in the theater or from the position of artistic director: there was no one to replace him. And as a responsible person, he agreed, although he came home, according to the recollections of his relatives, blue-green from fatigue. Then the actor was diagnosed with cancer and a whole bunch of other diseases, followed by a series of operations.

But even being on hospital bed, he managed to help others. So, a fellow countryman from Omsk found him and asked for protection: his daughter needed an urgent operation, a matter of life and death. And thanks to Ulyanov’s petition, the girl was soon successfully operated on. But Ulyanov could no longer help himself. He died in a capital clinic on March 26, 2007, on the eve of World Theater Day.

After all, I myself Ulyanov That’s exactly how he played, and that’s why he was remembered: on stage and on screen he was truthful to the last note, got used to someone else’s skin, was so accurate in his presentation that, for example, after the role of Tevye the milkman, the viewer “demanded an answer”: “Tell me, you Still a Jew or what?” And after Ulyanov played his ex-husband in “Without Witnesses,” he branded him: “Bastard, scoundrel!” I was in the role of Marshal Zhukov 25 times - no one else was seen in that role, and how many times in the endless queues of that time would someone ask: “What will Comrade Zhukov say?” He played the “Voroshilov shooter” - an old man avenging the insulted honor of his granddaughter - as himself: in those years his own granddaughter was growing up Lisa. And the viewer responded - to the truth.

Now his daughter is waiting for a response. No, not the daughter of a great artist - the daughter of a great man.

"Misha, you're wrong!"

“When my father died 7 years ago, it was as if half my body had been cut off,” recalls Lena Ulyanova.

It was difficult to live, breathe, walk. Six months passed senselessly, as if in a fog. And only then did she lose sight and breathe when the idea came to her head: to create a fund to help elderly actors named after her father - “People's Artist of the USSR”: “At that moment I felt as if someone was leading me, controlling my actions from above... And to console myself, I think that it’s all him. After all, what I’m doing now is a continuation of what dad started doing.

At our house, next to his schedule of performances, there was always a piece of paper hanging, as I called it, “a list of good deeds”: first name, last name, how to help. Someone can get an apartment, someone can get a doctor's appointment. My father never refused anyone and crossed a name off the list only when the problem was resolved. He said: “Who, if not me?” Back then it wasn’t called “charity” yet... That’s just how my father lived. When he worked as chairman of the Union of Theater Workers, he built a clinic for actors (now there are only 3 rooms left of it), and got old people pensions - they literally prayed for him! After all, when the USSR collapsed, many actors, especially in the provinces, found themselves in poverty, literally living like homeless people... From the troupe of the Theater. Vakhtangov, which he led, his father did not fire any of the pensioners, despite the fact that the youth grumbled. And he himself, despite the fact that he had access to all the privileges of the Central Election Commission, did not use anything. I thought that was not the main thing.

He’s a Siberian, an Omsk guy, he’s got that character. A real, strong, Russian spirit! Just imagine: from a remote village, in hungry war times - 1944! — he set off to conquer the regional city of Omsk, then Moscow. A simple peasant guy in the hell in which he lived (10 people in a hut “two pegs, three planks”), he felt this creative streak in himself, reached out to the light... And after all, he found courage in himself, maintained this creative flight and went from Omsk Tara to the stage of the Vakhtangov Theater! This is the brightest, rare example of the fact that you can break through to the top from the very bottom if you work hard, this is such an incentive for those who now do not believe in their strength, do not take risks, are afraid!.. But he was able to change his fate. And then, already at the height of fame, favored and recognized, he gave himself no rest, demanded and urged. After my father’s death, I found his diaries, where there was not a word about my mother and me: from 1946 to 2000, more than half a century, he wrote the same thing: “Misha, you didn’t do enough! Misha, you cheated! You're wrong! It could have been better!” My father believed that there was nothing worse than swimming in one’s own fat and resting on old laurels... Even in recent years, when the diagnosis of incurable Parkinson’s disease had already been made, all the capital’s professors, Chinese healers and our shamans had been tested, and sometimes they refused legs, my father continued to work: he went to the theater, learned roles, voiced radio shows...

Artist of the Theater named after. Evg. Vakhtangov Mikhail Ulyanov with his wife Alla and daughter Lena, 1967. Photo: RIA Novosti / Mikhail Ozersky

Alien honors

Buried Mikhail Ulyanov with military honors. Wife, Alla Parfanyak(an aristocrat, a professor’s daughter, whom “dad’s only pants were bristling at the knees, a shirt, no money, no housing - dad was able to literally conquer her”), outlived her husband by 2 years, spending almost the entire time in a coma after a stroke that occurred shortly after Ulyanov's departure. The ground has gone from under my feet...

“I rarely saw my father, but I remember this feeling that did not leave me even in my adult years. All-encompassing love... And he was also terribly reliable, I knew that I could come to him with my trouble at any second. Already an old man, in illness, when I came to the hospital and literally rushed to him with a groan: “Pa-pa!”, He answered his invariable: “Wait, we’ll figure it out now.” Since then, no one has ever said that to me again...

A continuation of the work of Mikhail Ulyanov, the foundation named after him “People’s Artist of the USSR”, which is headed by his daughter Elena, has already done a lot of good to elderly actors vegetating in poverty and obscurity, useless to anyone: “I help some people publish books, I bring baskets to others food for the holiday or just helping with money, organizing charity concerts in favor of one of the actors. One of my important tasks is to perpetuate the memory of departed idols, a difficult and very expensive task... And here, the responsiveness of tens of thousands of AiF readers could not have happened. I am sure: if a person has done so much for the country, then the country should remember him not as a mound of earth with a lopsided cross...”

After all, the money collected by the people - you, the readers of AiF, has already erected monuments on the graves Zhzhenova, Starygina, Innocent, Ivleva, Moiseeva. In recent years, the foundation has unveiled memorial plaques Tselikovskaya, Zhzhenova, Gorina and others. And now the dream of Mikhail Ulyanov’s daughter is to erect a worthy monument to her father in front of the drama theater in Omsk, the city that gave Mikhail Alexandrovich creative wings.

— For the construction of the monument, the foundation will transfer all the funds that are in its account, but this money is not enough... Dad began his “list of good deeds” when he was still young and healthy, in his very strength. But for some reason, even then he understood that we are not all eternal, that illness and tragedy are here, waiting nearby, around the corner... And he always lived with this feeling, says his daughter. But I think: she is wrong when her soul screams that Mikhail Ulyanov will be forgotten. No, they won't forget. They will remember not only his Zhukov and Voroshilovsky shooter - they will remember the list hanging next to the repertoire, they will remember his “Who, if not me?”

“But still, a monument is a kind of symbol to which you can come and lay flowers with gratitude,” says Elena Ulyanova.

The monument is not for Ulyanov, who during his lifetime did not need fame and was alien to honors. He is for us. To have someone to look up to.

Opening of the season at the State Academic Theater named after Evg. Vakhtangov. The theater's artistic director, People's Artist of the USSR Mikhail Ulyanov gives a speech at the troupe's gathering. year 2001. Photo: RIA Novosti / Vladimir Vyatkin

For those who want to help

You can transfer money for the creation of the monument using the details of the Public Fund for Assistance and Assistance to Film and Theater Veterans named after. M. Ulyanova “People’s Artist of the USSR”:

OGRN 1097799003928
TIN 7710477739
checkpoint 771001001
r/s 40703810000070000103 at JSCB Bank of Moscow (OJSC)
short-form 30101810500000000219
BIC 044525219

Alla Parfanyak (wife of Mikhail Ulyanov) was one of the most beautiful film and theater actresses of the Soviet era. In her youth, many celebrities paid attention to her, including Mark Bernes and Alexander Vertinsky. Mikhail Ulyanov and his wife lived for almost 50 years; after their death, they left behind a daughter, a granddaughter and two great-grandsons.

Mikhail Ulyanov's wife - short biography

The wife of actor Mikhail Ulyanov, Alla Parfanyak, was born on 08/09/1923 in the family of a mathematics professor from Minsk. Her mother was a Polish woman of noble birth. Parents tried to instill in the girl a love of art and good taste. My father was repressed in the thirties, but this did not stop Allochka from graduating from the Shchukin School and getting a job at the Vakhtangov Theater.

The beautiful actress was soon noticed by filmmakers; her first role was Valya Perova from the film “Heavenly Slug”. During filming, Alla met actor Nikolai Kryuchkov, her personal life changed. Subsequently, the popular actor divorced his wife and married Alla. The marriage produced a son, Nikolai (in 1949), Alla continued to play in the same theater.

Kryuchkov was popular and earned good money. Parfagnak went to the theater in a Moskvich with a driver, which was considered a luxury at that time. Her outfits were made by the best tailors, her hats by the most popular craftsmen. Family life with Nikolai ended in divorce and division of property due to the actor’s addiction to alcohol and passion for the young Zoya Kochanovskaya. Alla was left with a two-room apartment and a nine-year-old son.

New relationships

After the divorce, Alla was courted by many celebrities, but she chose Siberian Mikhail Ulyanov. This relationship was considered a misalliance, since the son of collective farmers from Tara (not far from Omsk) was poor. Therefore, Mikhail Ulyanov was not the best option for the well-read daughter of a professor with good manners. Alla had a wonderful career ahead of her; she was rightfully considered one of the most enviable brides in the capital.

Mikhail Ulyanov moved into Alla’s apartment, and in 1959 he and his wife had a daughter, Elena. Parfagnac almost stopped playing and going out with her husband. The cause was considered to be kidney disease of their daughter and Mikhail, which required increased attention to the girl. In the 70s and 80s, Alla sometimes acted in films, but only in episodes. Then Ulyanov’s wife decided to take care of only the house and began growing flowers and vegetables.

Alla Parfanyak's children brought more than just joy. Son Kolya, from his first marriage, was inquisitive as a child and entered the physics and mathematics department, but after the first year he abandoned his studies due to his passion for dissidence. He refused to take money from his mother; Mikhail Ulyanov’s wife transferred it through her friend Galina Konovalova. Then Nikolai tried to renounce his citizenship, but he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he ended up in Germany, but he couldn’t get along there either.