Konstantin Grigoryev is a famous actor in Soviet cinema and theater, who became a star of the first magnitude in the early 80s. He could play a Siberian peasant, and a hereditary nobleman, and a foreign intelligence agent, and a red commissar. In the guise of a vile gangster, Grigoriev repelled, causing a sea of negative emotions, but fell in love with himself, playing the fearless expedition leader.
Pictures with the participation of Konstantin Grigoriev gathered a huge audience from TV screens. And today, those paintings of the Soviet era have a lot of fans. However, not everyone knows the tragic fate of Konstantin Konstantinovich, as if he had fallen from life at the very peak of his popularity.
At the beginning of the acting path
Konstantin Grigoryev was born, whose filmography includes more than a dozen films, in Leningrad on February 18, 1937. He was raised by his grandmother. He survived the blockade of Leningrad, after school he entered the building university, which he did not graduate from. The theater attracted him, so the whole life and work of the young man revolved around him. While working as a fireman in the Vyborg Palace of Culture, he also attended a theater group. While working as a scene assembler at the Lensovet Theater, Grigoryev studied at the acting studio. Upon its completion, for two years he was part of the troupe of the Leningrad Komissarzhevskaya Theater. Having stepped in for a drunken colleague, he was rude to the artistic director, for which he was dismissed with a bang. It seemed - all! Point! Life is over! Where to go? To such as Grigoryev, the proverb “God kissed the crown” is used.
Conquer Moscow!
Even the lack of theatrical education did not become an obstacle on the road that the future actor Konstantin Grigoryev chose. In 1973, a penniless young man left for Moscow, where in a fairly short time at the Pushkin Theater he became a leading actor. It was very problematic to get tickets to the production of The Legend of Paganini with the participation of Grigoriev, it was almost impossible. Frequent of his partner in many productions was Vera Alentova. Once, at a rehearsal, the actress stumbled, fell from a high scenery and received serious injuries. Kostya was the first to react, carried her backstage in his arms and worried about the ambulance.
Actress Tamara Semina, recalling the shooting of the film “Tavern on Pyatnitskaya”, out of a perfectly selected cast especially singled out Grigoryev Konstantin - sociable, easy-going, with a great sense of humor and somewhat explosive character. There was even a moment when Alexander Faynzimmer - the director, fearing censorship, removed some ideologically harmful moments from the film. Outraged Grigoryev, along with Eremenko Nikolai, even wanted to beat the director for such an untruthful interpretation of historical events.
The actor that everyone dreamed about!
Nikita Mikhalkov, who spoke of the actor as an artistic person with a sharp moving character, invited Grigoriev to his film “Slave of Love” (captain Fedotov). The famous director believed that such a talent as Grigoriev knows how to subtly feel the plasticity of character in any course of the plot and director's proposal. It was with the light hand of Mikhalkov, who considered Grigoriev a dream of any director, the actor became a real star. In the late 70s and early 80s, the biography of Konstantin Grigoryev got rich in more than a dozen films, including “Tavern on Pyatnitskaya”, “Trans-Siberian Express”, “Treasure Island”, “Green Van”, “Walking through the agony”, The Queen of Spades.
At the peak of popularity
The actor, who was not inferior in popularity to the well-deserved actors, was in demand, proposals came one after another.
In 1981, he was invited to the Moscow Art Theater Oleg Efremov, and Grigoriev immediately began to play the main roles in the theater in the so-called first USSR national team. The charismatic Grigoriev Konstantin Konstantinovich admired his eccentricity not only on the stage; he was engaged in painting, silverware, woodcarving, playing the banjo and guitar, writing songs, poems, scripts and short stories. Grigoryev even knitted; he was often seen surrounded by the beautiful ladies of the theater, with whom he vigorously discussed the number of loops. The operetta Alyonka and Scarlet Sails, written by Grigoryev, was staged by many theaters in the country. Leningraders of the 60s loved the song "Rain on the Neva", written by him.
Konstantin Grigoryev: personal life
Grigoriev was able to find an approach to women and for a short period he charmed actress Yekaterina Vasilyeva, was in close relationship with the assistant director at Mosfilm Alla Mayorova, the former muse of Bulat Okudzhava. Having fallen in love, without hesitation, married a 19-year-old props theater Elena, who gave birth to his son Yegor.
From the second marriage to the actress, Grigoryev had a daughter, whose fate was tragic: the girl was thrown out of the window during a drunken party. The official version is suicide.
Everything has changed forever
Grigoriev Konstantin had a complex character and was often harsh in his statements. It was such incontinence that played a fateful role in the fate of the actor. February 17, 1984, having received a salary, he sat in a restaurant with friends and celebrated his birthday. At one moment it seemed to him that at the next table two men were looking strangely in his direction. Grigoriev did not like this, and he went to deal with them. After some time, when Konstantin went outside, one of the offended hit him on the head with a metal object and pushed him down a two-meter staircase. The only thing the victim was able to say when his bleeding friends were found by friends: “Guys, it hurts me!” The offenders were never found; it is quite possible that the investigation, for some reason, did not want to bring this matter to the end.
At the Sklifosovsky Institute, Konstantin underwent 8 operations, pumping out a liter of fluid from the brain area. The actor was in a coma for two weeks, spent a year and a half in the hospital and almost lost his speech. This was already a completely different person, sharply aged and lost his memory. The diagnosis made by doctors is total aphasia. At the same time, the actor, whose work of the left hemisphere was disrupted, perfectly understood everything. After what happened, he still played the guitar just as well, but with difficulty recalled the words. In communication, he often asked his interlocutors to speak more slowly or redirected questions to his wife.
Loneliness, lack of demand, poverty …
The rehabilitation period of the actor, who at first was not going to give up, stretched for years. He was occasionally involved in extras, the main roles passed to other actors. In a children's production of Mumu, Grigoriev played the deaf-mute Gerasim. Arriving at the cash register for a salary, he asked the cashier why he had been paid so little. To which the woman, without thinking, replied: “Work, Kostenka, we need more!” After this incident, the actor immediately wrote a letter of resignation.
The last filming of Grigoriev took place in 1991 in the film "Tanks Go Taganka" by Alexander Solovyov. There, the actor played the role of a patient in a psychiatric hospital. Moreover, he played so brilliantly and it seems that many associates thought about his madness.
Many friends became former and gradually stepped aside, leaving Grigoryev alone with his shaky health and material problems. In addition, the last four years of his life, the actor, who until recently admired the whole country, had kidney cancer. Grigoryev Konstantin Konstantinovich began to lead a secluded lifestyle, was in great need, perhaps because of hopelessness he began to drink. He, living on one pension, which even at one time was halved for unknown reasons, officials, even robbed some young bully. He pulled out a bag in which there was money, a passport, a blockade and a pension certificate.
