Vladimir Valentinovich Menshov was born on September 17, 1939 in Baku. His father Valentin Mikhailovich Menshov was a sailor, then worked in the NKVD, his mother Antonina Alexandrovna Menshova was a housewife. Because of his father's work, they lived in Baku, Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan. Prior to joining the Institute, he worked as a machinist student at a factory, at a mine in Vorkuta, as a sailor on a diving boat in Baku, and also as a supporting actor at the Astrakhan Kirov Theater. In 1961 he entered the acting department of the Moscow Art Theatre School. During the second course Menshov married actress Vera Alentova who was also studying at the same theatre school. In 1965 after graduating he worked for two years as an actor and assistant director at the Stavropol Regional Drama Theater. In 1970 he graduated from the VGIK postgraduate course in the department of feature film direction. From 1970 to 1976, Vladimir Menshov worked under contracts at the film studios Mosfilm, Lenfilm and the Odessa Film Studio. He made a short thesis film On the Question of the Dialectic of the Perception of Art, or Lost Dreams, staged the novel Mess-Mend by Marietta Shaginyan, which was staged at the Leningrad Youth Theater, and wrote the script I'm Serving on the Border at the request of Lenfilm. In those years his cinematic acting career began: he starred in the title role in the thesis work of his classmate Alexander Pavlovsky Happy Kukushkin. The film was shot at the Odessa Film Studio. Vladimir Menshov also appeared in it as a co-author of the script. The picture received the main prize at the Molodist-71 Kiev Film Festival, and the following year, Menshov received an invitation from director Alexei Sakharov to star in the film A Man in his Place. At the VI All-Union Film Festival in Almaty Menshov was awarded the first prize for the best performance of the male role. After this he was an in demand actor in film. As an actor, Vladimir Menshov has more than 100 credits. Some of the most popular films with his appearance include How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor, Where is the Nophelet?, Night Watch, Day Watch and Legend № 17. Menshov's directorial debut took place in 1976 with the film Practical Joke. The second picture of Menshov, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears became one of Russia's box-office record holders, was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, and then the Oscar as the Best Foreign Language Film. In 1984, Menchov shot the picture Love and Pigeons based on the play of Vladimir Gurkin. Vladimir Menshov also directed films: What a Mess!, The Envy of Gods, The Great Waltz. He wrote screenplays for films: I Serve on the Border, The Night is Short, What a Mess!, The Great Waltz, was the producer of several films, among which: Love of Evil, Chinese Service, Quadrille, The Envy of Gods, Neighbor, Time to collect stones, Shawls, The Great Waltz. In 2004, Menshov was the host of the Channel One show Last Hero. Currently Vladimir Menshov is the general director and art director of "Film Studio Genre", which is a subsidiary of Mosfilm. Expressed support of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and was blacklisted in Ukraine in 2015 as a result.
