Grigory Alexandrov: biography, personal life, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

He was one of the most famous directors of the Soviet Union. And their tandem with a beautiful wife, the most recognizable actress of that time, caused admiring exclamations from all sides. The films of Grigory Alexandrov outlived their creator: they are popular and loved even now. How did the director come to his success?

Childhood

The future popular director of the Land of the Soviets first saw the light in a maternity hospital in Yekaterinburg. And this happy event for the Mormonenko family (this is the real name of the artist) happened at the end of January 1903, to be more precise, on the 23rd. Gregory's mother's name was Anfisa, and his father's name was Vasily. Most sources reporting on the life of director Grigory Alexandrov in the early years agree that Vasily was a simple, ordinary hard worker - more precisely, a miner, and the family lived rather modestly. However, there are other details as well. According to them, the father of the future director was the owner of the hotel, and little Grisha spent his childhood in luxury. However, most researchers tend to believe the first version.

Already sinceAt the age of twelve, young Grisha started working to help his family feed. This is another proof that the Mormonenkos obviously did not bathe in luxury and money.

Introduction to theater life

Grisha's first job is as a handyman in the opera house of his native city. Obviously, it was then that the acquaintance with the theater, behind the scenes and the atmosphere of creativity took place in Grisha's life. It is quite possible that it was then, in adolescence, that the future Alexandrov fell ill with the theater.

At the Yekaterinburg Opera House, the teenager Grisha worked as a messenger, as an assistant to a props man, and as an assistant to a lighting engineer, moving from position to position, and sometimes combining them all at once. In parallel with this, he attended a music school in the violin class, which he did not quit, despite being busy in the theater. And there everything was more than good - although the service exhausted the young man, the movement up the career ladder nonetheless still took place. For several years, Gregory has gone from a simple messenger, in other words, an errand boy, to an assistant director. In parallel, Alexandrov received some kind of education, but still - he went to directing courses at the Workers 'and Peasants' Theatre.

The beginning of creative activity

So, Grigory Alexandrov (pictured above) was familiar with the backstage from a young age firsthand. He knew this "kitchen" well, because he "cooked" in it for many years. Therefore, the possible difficulties of the work did not frighten him.

After graduating directing coursestogether with his old friend, who also became a director - Ivan Pyryev, Grigory was engaged in amateur performances, but was soon accepted into the ranks of the Soviet Army. He spent about a year in the service, repaying his debt to the country in the front-line theater. And upon his return "to freedom", as follows from the biography of Grigory Alexandrov, Moscow "happened" in his life …

Moving to the capital

As mentioned above, Grigory was not afraid of difficulties. And yet they didn’t scare, but only beckoned new cities and opportunities. And therefore, having met with Moscow colleagues - actors of the art theater who found themselves on tour in the Ural city - and impressed by their work to the core, Aleksandrov packed his suitcase and rushed to the capital. Before that, however, he went to the Political Department and begged for a referral for advanced training.

Moscow met a provincial artist with great ambitions quite friendly. In any case, he immediately went to work in the Moscow First Workers' Theater of Proletkult. There he stayed for three years, where he met Sergei Eisenstein, and this meeting was fateful in its own way.

Move forward

Relations with Sergei Eisenstein Grigory Alexandrov developed quite warm. So much so that a more experienced master often consulted with a newcomer - for example, Grigory helped the master with the scripts of his first films - Battleship Potemkin and Strike. Subsequently, Aleksandrov starred in them.

Grigory helped Eisenstein in other paintingsand performances, was his right hand. He quickly realized that making a movie is much more interesting than acting in it, and dreamed only of the possibility of self-expression. In the meantime, there was no such thing, he worked closely with Eisenstein.

Hollywood

Everyone knows that in Soviet times it was not so easy to go abroad. But Sergei Eisenstein succeeded, and Grigory Alexandrov left the country with him. They left the Soviets for as long as three years, and the end point of their journey was Hollywood. Artists went to expand their knowledge and gain new experience - to learn about sound films (before that, only silent films were known to our country). For three years, Alexandrov and Eisenstein managed to visit not only the United States, they also traveled around Europe, and in Paris they even managed to shoot the film "Sentimental Romance".

The creative tandem returned to Moscow in the thirty-second year of the last century. And that's when everything changed. Grigory Alexandrov decided to move on.

Free swimming

Returning from a long trip, having accumulated a lot of experience and having some ideas about how and what to shoot, Grigory Alexandrov decided that the time had finally come for his independent directorial career. With that, he left Eisenstein.

In the same thirty-second, something else happened that could possibly have influenced the collapse of the Eisenstein-Alexandrov alliance. Personally, the latter himself Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin ordered a film about himself, a film that would glorify and ex alt the head of the Soviets. Alexandrov made such a film, which is probably alsocontributed to his further "green light" to work, while many other directors often could not get permission to shoot.

Be that as it may, The Internationale has seen the light of day. And after that, all in the same thirty-second, Grigory Alexandrov started shooting the picture that made him famous - "Merry Fellows".

Funny guys

The film, released in 1934, is based on the production of "Music Store" with the participation of the famous Leonid Utyosov. On his own initiative, a full-length film was created from the production by the efforts of two outstanding playwrights of the Soviet era - Nikolai Erdman and Vladimir Massa.

The goal was to create a musical comedy genre; such a genre has already been used with might and main in the West, but in our country no one has heard of it. Alexandrov, who is beginning to navigate the waves of directing on his own, was entrusted with conveying the idea of a new genre to the viewer. And he coped with his task - the picture was a phenomenal success, and the young director himself, as they say, woke up famous.

Following works

Following "Merry Fellows" (which, by the way, "made a sensation" in America as well) was followed by a number of other equally successful films: "Circus", "Volga-Volga", "Bright Path", "Spring", "Meeting on the Elbe" and so on. All of them had some success both in the Land of the Soviets and abroad. Some evenwon prizes at film festivals.

Later life

In the fifties of the last century, Grigory Alexandrov, who became a professor, was the artistic director at VGIK, at the directing department. In the seventies he published books of memoirs. And shortly before his death, in the eighty-third year, he made a documentary about his wife Lyubov Orlova. The last feature film "from the pen" of the director came out eleven years earlier. After that, Alexandrov did not shoot again.

The eminent film director died in December 1983 from a kidney infection. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery of the capital.

Private life

The director has been married three times. Although everyone knows about the connection between Grigory Alexandrov and Lyubov Orlova, few people suspect that in addition to the beautiful actress, the director was married twice more.

The first wife of Gregory was a girl named Olga. They got married very young, and in this marriage a child was born - the son of Grigory Alexandrov named Douglas. Theater parents (Olga also belonged to the world of art) named the boy after a Hollywood actor.

This marriage did not last long. Grigory met Lyubov Orlova and lost his head. With Orlova, Grigory Alexandrov lived in a happy marriage until 1975 - until the death of the actress.

The director's third wife four years later was his exdaughter-in-law, and at that time already the widow of her son (Douglas died of a heart attack in the seventy-eighth year). This marriage lasted until the director's death. Alexandrov left a grandson, also Grigory. He graduated from the camera department.

This is the biography of the talented director Grigory Alexandrov.