Anatoly Solonitsyn is a wonderful and very famous actor in Soviet cinema. He starred in films that were included in the Golden Cinema Fund of the USSR. An incredibly talented, always creatively-minded artist starred in the most stellar, eminent and cult directors of that time.
He worked with Alov and Naumov, Abdrashidov, Gubenko and Zarkhi, Mikhalkov and Larisa Shepitko, Gerasimov and Panfilov. Few actors can boast of this.
Great great-grandfather
Anotoliy Solonitsyn was born in 1934 in the small town of Belgorod, in the Gorky region. The Solonitsyn clan is represented by several generations of the Russian intelligentsia. The great-grandfather - Zakhar Solonitsin - was called the "Vetluzhsky chronicler", after which several books remained. Also preserved is his self-portrait, painted in oil on canvas. He was not only a chronicler, but also a Bogomaz, that is, an icon painter, and rather “noble”.
For free thoughts about the need to reorganize the state, which he shared with his friend, who left for Paris, Zakhar Solonitsin was expelled from the monastery. The founder of the repair of Zotovo, every day he went to a church in Tanshaevo along the road he himself cut in the forest, which has been preserved and is called by the people the “Zakharova Trail”.
The following representatives of the dynasty of intellectuals
His son was also an unusual person - the rural doctor Fedor Solonitsyn. Not every provincial doctor is admitted to the New York Hypnotic Society. A doctor who possessed the rare gift of treating people through hypnosis died at the age of 45, saving villagers from typhoid. All representatives of a powerful family, like Anatoly Solonitsyn himself, were ascetics: completely surrendering to their beloved business, they did not spare themselves at all. The father of the great actor Andrei Rublev in the distant 50s worked as the editor of the newspaper Bogorodskaya Pravda, then he noticed his talent, and he became the executive secretary of the newspaper Gorkovskaya Pravda, and then the correspondent of Izvestia.
First steps in the acting field
Anatoly Solonitsyn at birth received the name Otto. In those years, children were often called foreign names: internationalism was popular. But the future famous artist was named specifically in honor of Otto Schmidt, the leader of the polar expedition. And then the German names were associated with the Nazis, and the boy asked to be called Anatoly, although he always remained in the passport Otto.
Anatoly was carried away by amateur art in the city of Frunze, where his father was transferred. Despite the fact that the boy had a technical school and a specialty as a tool maker, Anatoly goes to the 9th grade in the new city and is actively engaged in a theater group. And so gloriously it turned out that they began to invite him with performances to various institutions of the city. And the dream of becoming an actor grew stronger.
Sverdlovsk "Alma Mater" and the beginning of professional activity
When you read about what the greatest artists did not enter the prestigious metropolitan theater universities with the sentence “professional unsuitability”, then you involuntarily begin to think about the competence of the selection committee. Indeed, Anatoly Alekseevich Solonitsyn, who was thrice rejected by her, literally a few years later, already gave lessons to students. The third unsuccessful attempt to enter GITIS forced Solonitsyn to go to Sverdlovsk. In order not to lose another year, Anatoly Alekseevich successfully passes exams at the studio at the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, which has just opened. After its completion, the actor remains in the Sverdlovsk Theater.
Here, in this city, he gets his first, but main role in the short film Gleb Panfilov. The film “The Case of Kurt Clausewitz” was the film debut of the young director of the Sverdlovsk film studio. It so happened that the first director, whom the actor Anatoly Solonitsyn met, was the wonderful Gleb Panfilov.
On the way to the star role
And the main thing in the creative fate of the actor was Andrei Tarkovsky. Anatoly Alekseevich for the sake of an interesting role, without hesitation, changed cities and theaters. In those years, the thick magazine Art of Cinema was published, in which scripts were printed monthly. Solonitsyn read Andrei Rublev and rushed to Moscow. He felt that he could and should play this role. His unusual and appropriate appearance in this case, and talent so convinced Tarkovsky of the need to shoot him, and not already approved by Stanistlav Lyubshin, that the director went against all the artistic advice.
In order to dispel the last doubts about the correctness of the choice, Andrei Tarkovsky turned to specialists in ancient Russian art with a question, which of the twenty actors whose photographs he provided, the most, in their opinion, corresponds to the image of Andrei Rublev. The answer was unanimous - Anatoly Solonitsyn. His filmography, numbering by the end of his life 46 beautiful works, was crowned by this second, then unsurpassed by any other film role.
Work with A. Tarkovsky
The film was released in 1966 and brought Solonitsyn worldwide fame. Andrei Tarkovsky, as the best foreign filmmaker, was awarded the Finnish film award “Jussi”. It has already been noted that the actor did not have bad, disastrous roles - he was very talented and obsessed with the profession. But on commemorative plaques and on a gravestone, Solonitsyn is depicted in the image of Andrei Rublev. Work on this role has changed the artist’s views on many things, including religion. For the director, he became a kind of mascot - Anatoly Alekseevich then starred in all his films, except for “Nostalgia”, in which Oleg Yankovsky played the main role due to the deadly illness of Solonitsin. Even in The Mirror, the actor was engaged in the role of the Passer-by, specially invented for him. It should be noted separately the work in the films of his idol. He created unforgettable images of Dr. Sartorius in the film Solaris (1972) and the Writer in Stalker (1979).
Favorite writer
Solonitsyn lived a short life - he was only 47 years old. He was a very decent, loyal, honest man, an excellent partner, a clever girl with a wonderful sense of humor, a real, in the Chekhov interpretation of this word, Russian intellectual. His favorite writer was Dostoevsky. In order to fulfill the role of the author in the failed film adaptation of "Idiot", the artist was ready to undergo plastic surgery.
When Tarkovsky asked him whom he would then portray with the face of Fyodor Mikhailovich, Solonitsyn replied that then, after this role, he would have no one to play. And in 1980 he really played his beloved classic in the film “26 Days from the Life of Dostoevsky” directed by Alexander Zarha. The role brought him the Silver Bear at the Berlinale.
Theatrical stage
Anatoly Solonitsyn, whose biography has changed dramatically after the role of Andrei Rublev and meeting with Andrei Tarkovsky, becomes, in essence, a film actor. His last theatrical role was Hamlet, staged on the stage of Lenkom by the same Andrei Tarkovsky. Solonitsin played this role in December 1976. He served in the drama theaters of Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Minsk, Novosibirsk and Tallinn. And on the stage he created several unforgettable images. In addition to the aforementioned Hamlet, the theatrical event was the role in the play based on Leonid Andreyev’s play “The One Who Gets Slaps” staged by Arseny Sagalchik. For her sake A. Solonitsyn temporarily moved to Tallinn.
Work with other directors
The best films in the cinema were his work by Gleb Panfilov in the film “There is no ford in the fire” and by Nikita Mikhalkov in the film “Among Among Strangers”. He played wonderful with Larisa Shepitko in Ascension and Alexei German in Checks on the Roads.
The roles played by him in “Anyutina Road” and in Gerasimov’s “To Love a Man” were wonderful. A separate niche is occupied by his work in the film by Vladimir Shamshurin "In the azure steppe", filmed in 1969. The point is not that he played the role of the Cossack Ignat Kramskoy wonderfully, but that on the set of this picture he fell ill with pneumonia. Being obsessed with work, Anatoly Alekseevich continued to act without treatment, which subsequently led to tragic events - lung cancer.
Last significant role
Actor Anatoly Solonitsyn, whose biography during these years was full of his beloved work and love, did not pay much attention to his health. They learned about the degree of neglect of the disease by chance. In 1981, he starred with V. Abdrashidov in the film "The train stopped." In the story, his hero journalist Malinin rides a horse. The actor, unable to restrain himself in the saddle, severely bruised his chest when he fell. During the examination, the hospital reveals lung cancer, and at the First Medical Institute, where the actor was urgently taken, they found that metastases had spread to the spine and it was impossible to stop the process. Work in this film is the last significant film role. In the same 1981, A. Sodonitsyn received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
Illness and death
The news of the fact that the film "Nostalgia" was already making his idol in Italy and the coveted role was given to Oleg Yankovsky greatly complicated the disease. Moreover, A. Tarkovsky found neither the strength nor the time to say goodbye to his dying "talisman", although he lived in close proximity. Anatoly Alekseevich ordered to take a portrait of Tarkovsky from the wall. There is a saying that a person who betrayed a friend, without hesitation, will betray his homeland.
But, obviously, certain creative individuals are above such concepts as fidelity and betrayal. The actor’s disease began to progress, but he died instantly, without experiencing terrible pains - he choked on the porridge that the nurse fed him. The actor was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.
