Aleksandr Menaker

Menaker Alexander Semenovich Born April 8, 1913 in St. Petersburg. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (09/05/1978). In 1929 he entered the acting department of the 1st art studio at the Bolshoi Drama Theater, in 1930 he transferred to the directing department of the Institute of Performing Arts. Since 1932, he worked at the State Association of Music, Variety and Circus and at Lengorestrad, performing musical parodies and feuilletons. Since 1933 - in the Leningrad Music Hall, since 1934 - actor, director, since 1935 - artistic director at the Jazz Theater of the All-Ukrainian House of the Red Army in Kharkov. In the years 1936-1938 - in the Leningrad Music Hall. In 1939 - at the Moscow Theater of Variety and Miniatures, where he first performed with M.V. Mironova with musical humoresques. Alexander Semenovich was married twice. The first time he married was a ballerina Irina Laskari in 1935. On July 17, 1936, the couple had a son, Kirill, who became a famous choreographer in the future. However, after three years, the marriage broke up, since Menaker met his true love - actress Maria Vladimirovna Mironova. On September 26, 1939, they got married, and on March 7, 1941, their son Andrei was born, who later became a popular theater and film actor. In 1942, Menaker was the director of the anti-fascist program "That's good!", The author and performer of musical feuilleton "Pray for him!". One of the directors of the program "Muscovite countrymen" (1942). During the war, he played in the front-line acting brigades. In 1948, after the theater was closed, Menaker and Mironova began to perform independently. Among their first collaborations: Moscow Meetings, Familiar Portraits. Menaker and Mironova participated in the program of the Hermitage theater "Here comes the steamer" (1954). Since 1954, Menaker and Mironova - at the Moscow Variety Theater until its closure. During these years, the Theater of Two Actors - Mironova and Menaker (director and artistic director) released the play "Speaking Letters", the review "In Our House" (mainly to Laskin texts), the play "Family Matters" (1954), which was based on Laskina "listening to the divorce case." He passed away on March 6, 1982 in Moscow. A sick heart, two heart attacks ... He died suddenly - the heart stopped. He was buried in Moscow at Donskoy Cemetery, station number 3.