Anatoli Papanov


Anatoli Dmitrievich Papanov was a Soviet stage, film and voice actor, drama teacher, and theatre director at the Moscow Satire Theatre where he served for almost 40 years. A prominent character actor, Papanov is mostly remembered for his comedy roles in a duo with his friend Andrei Mironov, although he had many dramatic roles as well. As a voice actor he contributed to over hundred cartoons. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1973 and awarded the USSR State Prize posthumously.

Early and war years

Anatoli Papanov was born in Vyazma, Smolensk Governorate into a mixed Russian-Polish family. His father Dmitry Filippovich Papanov was a retired soldier who served as a railway guard and an amateur actor at the local theatre founded by Nikolai Plotnikov, where Anatoli and his sister also performed as children. His mother Elena Boleslavovna Roskovskaya was a Polish milliner who secretly converted from Roman Catholicism to Russian Orthodoxy. Anatoli himself was raised in Orthodox traditions.
In 1930 the family moved to Moscow. As a schoolboy Papanov attended drama courses, then went on to work as a caster at a factory, simultaneously performing in a popular theatre studio for factory workers organized by Vakhtangov Theatre actors led by Vasili Kuza whom Papanov later considered his first teacher. During the late 1930s he made a number of uncredited appearances in movies, such as a sailor in Lenin in October or a passerby in The Foundling.
In 1941, after the invasion of the Soviet Union, Papanov joined the Red Army and left for the front line. As a senior sergeant he headed an anti-aircraft warfare platoon. In June 1942, he was badly wounded by an explosion and lost two toes on his right foot. He spent six months in a military hospital and was sent home as disabled, and for the next several years he could only walk with a cane. In 1985 he was awarded the 1st class Order of the Patriotic War.
Despite his injury, in 1943 Papanov entrolled as a student in the acting faculty of the State Institute of Theatre Arts, taking courses with Vasili Orlov. During his studies he met his future wife, a fellow student Nadezhda Yurievna Karatayeva, who had also served in the war as a nurse on a hospital train. They married on 20 May 1945, ten days after the end of the war.

Career

Theatre

In 1946, after graduating from the State Institute, Papanov left for Klaipėda, Lithuanian SSR, along with other students. There, they founded a Klaipėda Russian Drama Theatre, where he performed for several years. In 1948 Andrey Goncharov suggested he join the Moscow Satire Theatre, where he continued to act up until his death, performing in about 50 plays.
Among his popular roles were Alexander Koreiko in The Little Golden Calf, Kisa Vorobyaninov in The Twelve Chairs, Vasily Tyorkin in Aleksandr Tvardovsky's Tyorkin in the Other World, Anton Antonovich in Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector, Nikolai Shubin in Grigori Gorin's and Arkady Arkanov's Little Comedies of the Big House, Pavel Famusov in Alexander Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, Roman Khludov in Mikhail Bulgakov's Flight, Leonid Gayev in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and others.
Apart from performing, Papanov also taught acting at the State Institute of Theatre Arts, and in 1986 he staged his first and last play, The Last Ones by Maxim Gorky. Being a devout Christian, Papanov wanted to end it with a prayer. To avoid possible censorship, he used a radio record of Feodor Chaliapin performing a prayer.

Cinema

During the 1960s, Papanov began regularly appearing in films. He performed leading roles in the comedies Come Tomorrow, Please..., directed by Yevgeny Tashkov, and Children of Don Quixote, directed by Yevgeny Karelov, and appeared in several comedies by Eldar Ryazanov, including Nowhere Man, where he played four roles at once. It didn't bring him any fame, though, as the movie was heavily criticized upon release and quickly banned for 25 years straight.
Papanov became very famous, however, after his work as General Serpilin in Aleksandr Stolper's war drama The Alive and the Dead. For this role he was awarded the Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR and the main prize at the First All-Union Film Festival, and Konstantin Simonov personally lauded his work.
In 1966, Eldar Ryazanov released Beware of the Car, in which Papanov appeared alongside his friend Andrei Mironov, with Mironov as a modern-day black marketeer, and Papanov as his father-in-law, a war veteran who mocked him all the way through. Its popularity led Leonid Gaidai to cast them in his 1968 comedy The Diamond Arm as the main antagonists, a pair of smugglers who tried to get their hands on the hero's "diamond arm". The film was seen by 76.7 million people on the year of release, becoming the third most popular Soviet movie of all time. In 1971, Gaidai also tried both actors for the leading parts in his adaptation of The Twelve Chairs, but decided otherwise. In 1976, Mark Zakharov directed his own TV adaptation of the book and eventually cast both actors in the leading roles, reuniting them for the last time.
Papanov was also highly sought-after by animation directors. His distinguishing growling voice suited all kind of beasts such as Shere Khan from The Adventures of Mowgli, a Soviet adaptation of The Jungle Book. His most popular characters, though, were wolves, especially after he voiced the Wolf character in the top-rated animated series Well, Just You Wait!, which has been considered his best role, overshadowing all of his other work, to his great displeasure.

Death and memory

Papanov suffered from chronic heart failure. In 1987, he performed his last role in the tragic drama Cold Summer of 1953. After work on the movie was finished, Papanov returned from Karelia to his Moscow flat and decided to take a shower although the hot water was off that day. He died in the bath from heart attack. Just eleven days later, his long-time friend and co-star Andrei Mironov would die from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Papanov was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. He was survived by his wife, actress Nadezhda Karatayeva who also performed at the Moscow Satire Theatre, and their daughter Elena Papanova, a theatre and film actress.
is named after Papanov.
In 2012 a monument in memory of Papanov was opened in his native Vyazma.
One of the streets in Mikhaylovsk, Stavropol Krai is named after the actor.

Selected filmography

Movies