Oleg Efremov

Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov (October 1, 1927, Moscow - May 24, 2000, ibid.) - Soviet and Russian actor and director of theater and cinema, teacher, theatrical figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1987). People's Artist of the USSR (1976). Winner of three State Prizes of the USSR (1969, 1974, 1983) and two State Prizes of the Russian Federation (1997, 2003). One of the founders and first secretary of the Union of Theater Workers of the USSR, a member of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR. He was elected People's Deputy of the USSR from creative unions. Member of the CPSU since 1955. Oleg Efremov - creator of the Sovremennik Theater, in 1956-1970 was its artistic director; since 1970 headed the Moscow Art Theater Gorky, and after its section in 1987 - Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov. One of the outstanding theater directors of his time, Oleg Efremov always remained an actor; on the theater stage he created memorable images of contemporaries in the plays of V. Rozov, A. Volodin and A. Gelman; among the best roles of the mhatov period are both Chekhov's Astrov and Molière in Kabala the Holy One by M. Bulgakov; Moviegoers are best known as Colonel Gulyaev ("The battalions are asking for fire"), taxi driver Sasha ("Three Poplars on Plyushchikha"), Maxim Podberezovikov ("Beware of the car"), Aibolit ("Aibolit-66"). For half a century, since 1949, Oleg Efremov taught actor skills at the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio, was a professor and head of the actor skill department. Oleg Efremov was born in Moscow, in the family of Nikolai Ivanovich and Anna Dmitrievna Efremov; grew up in a large communal apartment on Arbat, which in his mature years, according to A. Smelyansky, could tell for hours, “as if it were about Tsarskoe Selo”. My father served as an accountant in the GULAG system, and O. Efremov spent part of his boyhood in the Vorkuta camps, where he became closely acquainted with the criminal world. The scene attracted him from childhood: with cousin G. Menshenin, later a theater actor, director and artist, O. Efremov, according to his father’s recollections, constantly played in the theater: future directors “cut out paper dolls, made some simple decorations”. It was introduced into the theater circles by his court mate A. Kaluzhsky - the grandson of the famous Mkhatovts V. Luzhsky. Another childhood friend was S. Shilovsky, the son of E. Bulgakova, - O. Efremov often visited M. Bulgakov’s house in Nashchokinsky Lane in the pre-war years. “The owner of the house,” he wrote many years later, “of course, I don’t remember, but the atmosphere of a beautiful, cheerful, intelligent family remained in my memory ... I didn’t have any idea about the“ Days of the Turbins ”, nor about“ Moliere ”, nor about the head of this house ... Just Bulgakov's house turned out to be part of life, "foreshadowing" meetings with the Art Theater. Was in childhood O. Efremova and the drama circle at the House of Pioneers. She led the circle of A. G. Kudashov, who in the 20s studied in the studio of M. Chekhov. All the ways led to the Art Theater, and in 1945 A. Kaluzhsky persuaded O. Efremov to enter the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio, where M. Kedrov and V. Toporkov became his tutors.