Shirvindt remembered how he worked with Papanov: “There is no more convenient partner”

FROM THE DOSIER “MK”

Anatoly Dmitrievich Papanov was born in 1922 in Vyazma, Smolensk region, in the family of a military man and a milliner of Polish origin. When the boy was 8 years old, the family moved to Moscow. As a teenager, he worked as a foundry worker at a ball-bearing factory, and in his youth he studied at a drama studio at the Kauchuk factory. He considered the actor of the Vakhtangov Theater handsome Vasily Kuza as his first teacher. In 1937, he first appeared in films, playing a cameo role in the film Lenin in October.

He fought, near Kharkov he was surrounded, an explosion severely disfigured his right leg, at the age of 21 he became an invalid of the third group. In 1943 he returned to Moscow and entered the second year of the acting department of GITIS, promising to correct his lameness – and corrected it. In 1945, he married his classmate Nadezhda Karataeva, with whom he lived all his life. He played his first major film role in 1961 in Eldar Ryazanov’s eccentric comedy The Man from Nowhere. He starred in more than 70 films, voiced about 100 cartoons. From 1946 to 1948 he worked in Klaipeda at the Russian Drama Theater, and in 1948 he moved to the Moscow Satire Theater, where he played about fifty roles in 40 years.

Floor polisher in the make-up of Leo Tolstoy

“Now everything has turned into a template along the line of remembrance and memorialization,” says Alexander Shirvindt. – But I don’t want to fit into this stereotype – great, cult, grandiose, oh, what a pity … But in this case, when you talk about Papanov, you need to understand that in the absolute flow of human birth, especially when it comes to people of creative professions, it’s not a conveyor, but personality defines everything. I say this with knowledge of the matter, because for a thousand years I have been teaching at the theater institute and baking these future artists. Today, if you disarm all the bald and beefy ones who run around the screens with machine guns from series to series, wander from channel to channel, then any war can easily be ended. And if something similar to the great Russian theater appears against such a background, then this is an individuality that you can never confuse with anyone.

I worked with Anatoly Dmitrievich for many years and observed him day after day. I can say that in his work I have never seen something alien, peeped.

– Is it possible to determine Papan’s parameters that are inherent only to him – and it does not matter whether this was manifested in the performances of the Theater of Satire or in the cinema?

– What are Papan’s parameters? Firstly, he could not go on stage just like that, powdered. Now people are powdered or not powdered at all, but immediately run to the stage. Make-up for them is an atavism, they don’t care whether they play “Three Sisters” or “Fuck in a Mortar” – he powdered himself and ran to the stage. And Papanov could not go out without putting on make-up. For him, makeup was the main attribute of reincarnation.

And, mind you, he made up himself. I remember that he had a modern miniature based on the old vaudeville “Lev Gurych Sinichkin” in the play “Gury Lvovich Sinichkin”, written by Dykhovichny and Slobodsky. So Tolya played a polisher in the House of Writers. And so he did the make-up of Leo Tolstoy – he sat in front of the mirror, put on make-up for hours, and he turned out to be the spitting image of Leo Tolstoy. To the make-up was added a long shirt and huge feet, which he made from polyethylene, which he specially ordered. Here are bare feet of this size, and even smeared with yellow mastic. And in this form, he delivered an amazing monologue – it turned out such a look at modern literature and dramaturgy, from the point of view of a polisher. And it was before the floor polisher from the film “I’m walking around Moscow.”

There were wonderful reprises that, they say, everyone wants to leave a mark in literature, and here we are, like, wiping. And it would be nice if there were only playwrights, otherwise their wives still go to the House of Writers. And count these wives – six times more than playwrights, and wipe after these too.

Moreover, Valentin Pluchek (chief director of the Theater of Satire from 1957 to 2000. – M.R.) staged The Cherry Orchard, but not on stage, but in our BRZ (large rehearsal hall), where we now have Satire’s Attic. He wanted to make such a chamber good performance, for him Leventhal (Valery Leventhal is a famous theater artist. — M.R.) came up with such an easy decoration. Pluchek assembled a powerful cast, everyone was there – Andryushka Mironov, Mishka Derzhavin, Olechka Aroseva, Raya Etush played Ranevskaya, and quite unexpectedly. And Papanov is Gaev, her brother.

Pluchek did not want any props, make-up – only so that the relationship between the characters could be seen, so that nothing would distract from them. The spectator sat close, and this was important for Pluchek. And literally everyone came out barely powdered, with their faces, and Tolya could not bear it. But he could not disobey. And then Tolya glued such big eyelashes to himself. And when he left, then Maria Vladimirovna Mironova, who came to see Andryusha, only said: “Oh, Prince Igor!”

Love in old age cannot be saved

And the second thing that was unique to Papanov was the range of possibilities, he pushed it apart. Let’s say he was very musical, but he rarely managed to show musicality. Well, what does he have left to watch the musical? “I am Water, I am Water…” from the cartoon? He moved great. After all, he was at the front, he was wounded there – a leg without two fingers, but this was completely invisible. Because he worked on it: physically powerful, strong, involved in sports all his life.

So that’s about the role and range. I think that such clown artists as he, Andryusha Mironov, Zhenya Leonov, Yurochka Nikulin, made their way all their lives, breaking out of this role. I speak clearly? And it is difficult for such proven comedians to break through. They are usually asked: “Are you out of your mind?” – and the whistle begins, because the audience was deceived. I have witnessed several such cases in my life. But Papanov was lucky in this sense – director Alexander Stolper decided and took the comedian for the role of General Serpilin in his film The Living and the Dead. It was almost a tragic role.

We also had creative evenings – hacks for money. We went out in tandem: I was with Mironov, he was with Derzhavin, Derzhavin was with Papanov or with me, and I was with Papanov, depending on the employment of each in the theater or on the set. And when we connected, I had the first department, and Tolya had the second. And besides his famous floor polisher, he had poems in the House of Writers that he read. He read, for example, The Bronze Horseman, remarkably, like Seryozha Yursky, not in a reader way, not in a textbook. Poetry for him was an outlet for character and comic roles.

Do you know how he ended his performances? “Thank you, friends, thank you for coming,” and read this quatrain:

I don’t know how much more to live

But I assure you, my friends.

Fatigue can be saved for old age,

Love cannot be saved in old age.

Mysterious ending. I always asked him: “Tol, where did you get this?” – and he avoided answering, saying that, they say, a good poet wrote.

I myself have a stamp – they say, a master of improvisation. Everyone expects jokes from me. And this is torture. Every time you have to not screw up, since you have such a train. Here Papanov was absolutely unpredictable in terms of reactions. And without any preparations. I remember we went to the States – the first trip from the Union of Cinematographers. The time was such that all those traveling abroad were divided into troikas and a person in charge was placed at the head of each. But these respondents were not enough for us.

Our trio consisted of me, Tolya and his wonderful wife Nadenka Karataeva. We were “followed” by Nadya, a party member, an absolute patriot to the marrow of her bones. And when we arrived in New York, she immediately began to look for the ulcers of capitalism. And there, you understand, then an ulcer, then there is no ulcer, then an ulcer, then again it is not there – everything is somehow through time. Nadya is in a panic. And at this time, a negro child hurries past us with a gurney full of some pies.

“Stop! Nadia says. – Here, Tolya, a pie! American! Seventy cents! We have such a pie worth ten kopecks! With jam!!!” And Tolya says to her: “Nadya, don’t forget that after our pie we still have free treatment.”

“Khlestakov is coming to us”

He lived a difficult life. His biography is, as it were, divided into two parts: the first – he drank heavily and raged, and then an absolute, one hundred percent plot. Not that he began to drink less, but did not touch at all. I quit for the sake of the theatre. He is a man of extremes and will.

I was very afraid of the first performances. Panic! He begged everyone not to come to the premieres, maybe to some tenth performance. Only then did he loosen up and walk. And so he was very constrained. Valentin Pluchek staged The Inspector General, and it so happened that we immediately took him on tour to Leningrad. They played in the Palace of the First Five-Year Plan, in this huge hall for four thousand people. And Tolya was still in this very “premier” state. There is a full house in Leningrad, which is understandable – in the performance, all the performers of Satire play. Karavaichuk’s strange music is boom-boom-boom, so tense, Leventhal’s wonderful arrangement, representing all the provincial mold.

And here is the first performance. Tolya runs out: “Gentlemen, I have gathered you in order to inform you of the unpleasant news – Khlestakov is coming to us.” Silence. What should he do after that – leave, stay? But, to the credit of the audience, at least someone twitched. That’s the degree of tightness he had.

– This is in the theater, but in life?

In everyday life he was very modest and shy. There are artists who go around and put their face under the street. I remember colleagues who, going out into the street, like sowers, scattered calendar cards with their image – to the right, to the left. And Tolya … He had such huge dark glasses, plastic, for a rupee forty, a cap pulled down over his very eyes – just so that they would not be recognized and approached. Especially after the “Diamond Arm”. He treated his Lelik badly, he believed that they were forced to squeeze the image. Well, about “Well, wait a minute!” what can I say – a brand like a cross must be carried. He carried modestly.

Or, say, he had a Volga car, a new one. And he was embarrassed to drive her to the theater. He and Nadya lived somewhere on the Nikitsky Gates, and when he was late for a performance, he drove a car along Bronnaya, left it at the corner of Bronnaya and Garden Ring and walked to the theater. Was ashamed, or something, of well-being. He was such a type. And the same thing on stage: as a partner, he never bulged out. There is no better partner.

– Can you call yourself a friend of Anatoly Dmitrievich?

– Not to say that we were bosom friends, but we communicated constantly. Actually, he had very serious friends – he had a priest as a friend (and this at that time!), The writer Viktor Astafiev from Siberia.

Shortly before Tolya’s death, as a director, he staged the play “The Last” based on Gorky’s play. He really wanted the production to end with a prayer. He even found a radio recording of the prayer – Chaliapin sang it – and nevertheless inserted it into the finale.

You know, what a thing: wonderful artists leave, new ones come, in their place, of course, they introduce others. How else? Life goes on, the theater must stop. But there are such roles when you can not introduce anyone. So it was with The Marriage of Figaro, where Andryusha played. So it was with the “Capercaillie’s Nest”, where Tolya Papanov had a unique role. Good actors played in the performance, but all the same it was like Tolya’s solo performance – both breadth and power … You can’t do anything about it. This Stalinist phrase: “there are no indispensable ones” is bullshit. There is.