Erast Garin, actor: biography, personal life, filmography

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

Erast Garin is an actor, director and screenwriter who worked with equal success both in cinema and on the theater stage of the Soviet Union. To date, he is best known for his role as the King in the 1947 film Cinderella. The biography of Erast Garin, his work and personal life are of interest to many.

Early years

Erast Pavlovich Garin (real name Gerasimov), was born on October 28, 1902 in Ryazan (then the Russian Empire), in a poor family of ordinary workers. He studied at the Ryazan men's gymnasium. Little Erast was not an assiduous child, but he instantly learned any information, which allowed him to get good grades without sitting up for homework. Like the whole family, Erast supported and showed open sympathy for the new Soviet government, and therefore, having barely graduated from school, at the age of 17 he volunteered for the Red Army. It was there that Erast's first encounter with theater and creativity took place - he performed on the stage of the garrison theater, which later became the First Amateur Theater of the Red Army. Comrades in the theater, noticing the acting excitement of the young man, they said,that he "burns" on stage - hence the pseudonym of the novice actor "Garin" appeared. His acting debut was a small role in the production of Yakov Knyaznin's comedy "Sbitenshchik", with which the theater went to Moscow. In the photo below, Erast Garin in the 20s.

Despite the fact that Erast had a really small role, Vsevolod Meyerhold noticed him on a Moscow tour, seeing in the young man the makings of a real actor. He advised Garin to start studying by profession and invited him to the Higher State Director's Workshops, which he himself led - the young man entered there in 1921.

The beginning of professional creativity

In 1922, Erast Garin became an actor at the Meyerhold State Theatre. The young man quickly earned the trust of Vsevolod Emilievich, becoming his favorite actor and student. The great director listened to Garin's opinion, appreciating his sober, analytical mind.

The first big role of the novice actor was immediately ten characters in the play "Give Europe" (in the posters and repertoire was listed as "DE"). Among them were six inventors, one inventor, a fascist, a murdered worker and a poet from the desert. In this work, Garin showed a real talent for parody and impersonation, backed up by dexterity and character. He perfectly fit into the grotesque atmosphere of Meyerhold's productions, playing with his voice, intonations, exaggerating human plasticity. In this production, all the features of the future "Garin style" were born.games".

Recognition

Fame fell on the young actor in 1925, after playing the title role in a production of Nikolai Erdman's play "The Mandate". The image of Nepman Pavel Gulyachkin, embodied by him, became a symbol of "flagellation satire", more than three hundred times (according to one of the critics) causing explosive laughter from the audience. Garin as Gulyachkin in the photo below.

No less successful were the subsequent roles of Khlestakov (the play "The Inspector General" in 1926) and Chatsky ("Woe to Wit" in 1928). Here is what contemporary critics wrote about Garin's work in the play "Woe to the Mind":

He was not like the other Chatskys played before him, he was unusual, unexpected. E. Garin turned out to be not just a comedic, eccentric, simpleton actor, as he was seen before Chatsky, he was surprisingly lyrical, which became the main find of Sun. Meyerhold in the play.

It was the work in Meyerhold's productions that gave rise to Erast Garin's tendency to eccentricity and satirical buffoonery, which will accompany him in all subsequent acting work.

In the early 1930s, Garin was also successful in radio performances. At that time, radio was just beginning to take root in the everyday life of Soviet people, and Garin's expressive voice made him one of the first radio favorites among ordinary listeners.

In 1936, Erast Garin decided to leave his friend and mentor Meyerhold, wanting to try his hand at directing. Hewent to the Leningrad Comedy Theater (modern St. Petersburg Academic Comedy Theatre), staging plays and simultaneously playing them until 1950. Vsevolod Emilievich was not against the creative development of his pet, and therefore supported his choice and long-term friendship was not interrupted. When in 1938 Meyerhold lost his theater and was subjected to numerous persecutions, only Erast Garin remained devoted to him - the only one from the entire former troupe of the director. The great director spent his last evening before his arrest with Garin and his wife. In the photo below, Erast Garin and Vsevolod Meyerhold at the rehearsal of "The Government Inspector".

Movie debut: "Marriage"

The first film with Erast Garin was the historical film "Lieutenant Kizhe" in 1934, where he played the role of adjutant Kablukov. Garin liked cinema, so in 1936, after leaving the Meyerhold Theater and gaining more creative freedom, he decided to make his own movie. The choice fell on the adaptation of Gogol's "Marriage", which Erast Pavlovich filmed in the avant-garde style of Meyerhold's productions, skillfully combining frank theatricality with cinematic standards. The very first premiere did not leave any critic indifferent: the reviews were divided into extremely enthusiastic and negatively devastating. But during the campaign against "formalism" in 1937-1938, "Marriage" was severely criticized, all copies were seized and destroyed, and the original negative was washed off the films. No copies of this have been found at this time.pictures.

Doctor Kalyuzhny

The fight against "Meyerholdism" in the USSR was gaining momentum, and therefore Garin again turned to the theater. In 1938, Garin's directorial and acting success was the production of the play "The Son of the People", which the playwright Yuri German wrote especially for him. Having brilliantly performed on stage the role of Dr. Kalyuzhny, a selfless and spiritually pure representative of the Soviet intelligentsia, Erast Pavlovich earned the approval of critics, and therefore decided to transfer the successful performance to the cinema. However, the artistic council of "Lenfilm" did not approve the director for the lead role. In their opinion, the appearance of Garin was not suitable for the role of a "Soviet goodie." As a result, the role went to Boris Tolmazov, who, at the request of the director, did not play, but "copied" the character already created by Erast Garin. In the photo below, a comparison of the images of Kalyuzhny performed by Garin and Tolmazov.

Cinderella

With the huge fee received for the film direction of "Doctor Kalyuzhny", Garin bought an apartment in Moscow, and in 1941 he and his wife moved to the capital. There he began acting at the Soyuzdetfilm and Mosfilm studios, but for some time his screen roles did not deserve such success with the public as theatrical ones. Everything changed in 1947, when the fabulous film Cinderella was released. Erast Garin performed his best film role in it -eccentric, absent-minded, but very kind King, the father of the Prince. The picture owes its popularity, which has not faded to this day, to two acting works - Garin himself and Faina Ranevskaya, who played the equally eccentric stepmother of Cinderella.

Further creativity

After "Cinderella" Garin played a series of small roles, proving himself as a great master of the episode. Appearing on the screen even for a few minutes, the actor managed to leave his character in the memory of the audience. Garin also did not leave theatrical creativity. In Moscow, he staged four performances at the Film Actor Theater and one at the Satire Theater. During his film career, he played three different fairy-tale Kings in the films "Cain the Eighteenth" (1963), "An Ordinary Miracle" (1964) and "Half an Hour for Miracles" (1968). In addition, Garin voiced Kings and Tsars in the cartoons Wish Fulfillment (1957), Beloved Beauty (1958) and The Brave Little Tailor (1964), basically repeating the image first created in Cinderella. By the way, voicing cartoons occupies a fairly large place in the work of the actor: from 1947 to 1978, he gave his voice to more than forty characters, the most famous of which was Eeyore the Donkey in the 1972 cartoon Winnie the Pooh and the Day of Worries.

Recent years. End

The last big acting, and at the same time the last directorial, work of Erast Garin was the picture"Merry Rasplyuev Days" in 1966, in which he played the main role of Kandid Tarelkin. During the filming of this film, Garin was injured, as a result of which he lost one eye and was practically blind in the other. This put an end to his directorial career, he also could no longer play the main roles in the cinema. The last bright episodic roles of Erast Garin were Professor M altsev in the film "Gentlemen of Fortune" (1971) and theater critic in "12 Chairs" (1971).

The actor died on September 4, 1980 in his Moscow apartment, he was 77 years old. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

Private life

Erast Garin married in 1922 the actress of the Meyerhold theater Khesa Lokshina. Madly in love with Erast, she became not only a wife, but also a creative companion, remaining her throughout her life. Erast Pavlovich created all scripts, performances and films in collaboration with Khesya - they understood each other very subtly, which helped in creating joint projects. At the beginning of 1937, after the film "Marriage" was banned, the first misunderstanding arose between the spouses, resulting in quarrels, and they parted for a while without formalizing a divorce. During this period, Garin lived with the writer Lyubov Rudneva. However, in separation, Erast Pavlovich very quickly realized that no one could ever replace Khesya for him - not only a beautiful woman, of which there are many, but also a friend, ally, creative associate. Khesya and Erast began to live together again - greatthe heart of the wife allowed Garin not to be jealous when it turned out that Lyubov Rudneva was pregnant. He freely visited and supported the mother of his unborn child, and when his daughter Olga was born in 1938, he returned to Khese again, now forever. Olga Erastovna is the only child of the artist, and Khesya Alexandrovna never prevented her father from communicating with her daughter. Pictured below is Garina's wife.

After returning, gossips often said that Erast returned to Khesa out of pity, but in fact he was still in love with Lyuba. But the memories of people from the inner circle of the spouses say otherwise. Here is a quote from the memoirs of the actor and director Yevgeny Vesnik:

Erast Garin and Khesya Lokshina are a holy couple. They couldn't live without each other. They didn't have children. She treated him like a son, a brother, and Erast took her cares with important and proud resignation, as a matter of course. She was often sick, lay in hospitals, and these days one could feel who Khesya was for Erast. He wilted, lost weight, grew gloomy, grew old, grew a beard, became wrinkled, uncomfortable and even angry with eyes full of anxiety, sadness and confusion.

When he passed away, Khesya Alexandrovna burned down very quickly. Without Erast Pavlovich, she became lost, soon went to him. Such couples are not forgotten. Doves!

Hesya Alexandrovna really lived without her beloved husband for only two years, having died in June 1982.