A driver, a sailor, a bursak, a Red Army soldier, a punks, a shopkeeper … You can long list the roles played by Alexander Lebedev - an actor who is considered a recognized master of the episode. Infrequently, he was lucky to fulfill the main role. Often his name was in the credits on the last lines, or even not mentioned at all. Nevertheless, the actor Alexander Lebedev, the viewer knows well: is it a joke - 160 roles!
The beginning of the creative path
Alexander Ivanovich was born on the eve of 1930, December 26, in the city of Voskresensk, Moscow Region. There is almost no information about the childhood of the future actor, it is known that in his school years he studied in the drama club, and then went to Moscow to enter VGIK. The short guy did not impress Sergey Gerasimov, who was gaining a course, but his wife Tamara Makarova liked him. And although the young man was not accepted into the cinematographic institute, according to a note by Makarova, Lebedev was invited by Olga Pyzhova to the Central Children's Theater. Here, the young man played a major role in the sensational performance based on the play by Sergei Mikhalkov, "I want to go home." The debut was triumphant. At the same time, Alexander studied at the State Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS), on the course Pyzhova. At 23, Lebedev graduated with honors.
First roles
The creative biography of actor Alexander Lebedev continued with work at the Theater for Young Spectators, where the artist delighted children for a year. Around the same time, Lebedev became an employee of the Mosfilm film studio. Since then, the cinema platform has become the home of actor Alexander Ivanovich Lebedev until the end of his life, and the fate of the cinema takes precedence over the fate of the theater.
The first role of the young actor was the episodic image of a mischievous sailor in the picture of Mikhail Kalatozov “Faithful friends”. The film won great success among the audience, they began to recognize Lebedev in the streets of Moscow in person. Then the actor starred in the film "Swedish Match", in the episodic role of a shopkeeper in a remote provincial town where nothing happens, and local figures grab at every opportunity to stir up the sleepy, uninteresting life of the population. “We have everything!”, His hero helpfully answers the question of whether there are matches. In one sentence, Lebedev manages to instantly sketch a portrait of a clever crook who knows his own benefits.
Such different roles
In 1955, the M. Gorky Film Studio released a film based on the eponymous work by Arkady Gaidar, "The Fate of the Drummer." Alexander Lebedev gets the role of a bully Kovyakin. The actor brilliantly copes with the task of translating a negative character on the screen.
In 1956, Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov created the first version of the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nikolai Ostrovsky, "How Steel Was Tempered." Actor Alexander Lebedev did not get the main, but significant supporting role. He played the Red Army soldier Nikolai Okunev. However, the film about Pavka Korchagin, which was directed by Alov and Naumov, directed by Nikolai Mashchenko in 1975, did not get Lebedev.
Lebedev's comedic gift was revealed in Alexander Rowe's musical picture, A Precious Gift. Alexander appeared before the viewer as the young man Petya, the son of the rollicking fishing lover Karp Sidorenko, to whom loving children and his nephew decided to put a big pike on a hook as a presentation.
In the historical and revolutionary Soviet film "The Storm", Alexander Lebedev created the ideological image of a convinced Red Army man.
In the comedy film by Andrei Tutyshkin “To the Black Sea”, Lebedev again has an episode - the role of a cadet at a driving school, where the main character learns to drive a car in order to go on vacation on the sea.
the main role
In 1959, in the Mosfilm musical short film, the young actor Alexander Lebedev was lucky to play the main role, as it turned out, the only main one in his entire career. The charismatic hero Lebedev appears in the first frames with a guitar in his hands, sings, dances, jumps through a skipping rope and plays hopscotch without releasing a string instrument from his hands. This character stands at the center of a fun story about creating a courtyard orchestra.
Little roles of a big actor
Humor, tragedy, eccentricity, ardent conviction - it seems that everything was subject to the cinematic gift of Alexander Lebedev. He created the image of a person from life, familiar and understandable to each viewer. Someone fell in love with him as a policeman in "Gentlemen of Fortune", someone hated his bandit Genka in "Born of Revolution", and someone was tearfully sorry for the soldier from "Eternal Call", whose fate was broken with a shot hand - he was a carpenter. The pioneer leader in the film “My Friend Kolka”, the driver Osin in the drama “Hot Snow”, and Arkhip from the film “The Sun Shines Everyone”, and other images of the cinematic biography of the actor Alexander Ivanovich Lebedev, which he created with incredible accuracy and persuasion, were remembered by the audience..
The artist embodied the last roles in the series. Until the age of 75, directors invited him to the set, knowing that every time the image created by the artist will be remembered by the audience and will give the film a special, life-like color. The housemates, meeting Lebedev on his daily walk, were interested in where their beloved Sashka was filming now, so his pensioners called him.
Misfortune
Judging by the biography, the personal life of actor Alexander Lebedev was not as happy as on stage and in the movies. It so happened that he began to get sick often and badly. The usual good nature left the old man. There was some confusion at Mosfilm, which is why the honored actor stopped receiving the allowance for his small pension. In addition, in the hands of the patient Alexander Lebedev was a wife, bedridden by a serious illness, and a daughter, registered in a neuropsychiatric dispensary. Social workers came to Lebedev. By the time the misunderstanding with the pension allowance was resolved, the artist was gone.
Tragic circumstances
The “king of the episode” died at the 82nd year of life, the doctors could not establish the cause of the death of actor Alexander Lebedev, because at the time of the death neither the doctors nor the police were nearby. Due to a mental illness, Lebedev’s daughter Tamara didn’t tell anyone about her father’s death, the body of the deceased lay at home for several days. The guild of film actors of Russia about the death of the artist became known only on the 11th day. Tamara for a long time did not agree to give the deceased to the morgue, and when the door was opened and the corpse was taken away, the woman did not give either documents or consent to the burial. The body of the famous artist lay in the morgue for more than a month, then was cremated. Lebedev’s wife, Anna, survived her husband for two months. Spouses buried together in a columbarium at the Domodedovo cemetery.
