Actor, poet and singer Vladimir Vysotsky was born 75 years ago, on January 25, 1938.
Actor, poet and singer Vladimir Vysotsky was born 75 years ago, on January 25, 1938.
January 25 is Vladimir Vysotsky’s birthday. The actor, poet and singer managed to intertwine ironic and grotesque tones and romantic images of Soviet life in his repertoire. He would be 75 today.
Vysotsky developed a passion for theater in his school years. In 1960, he graduated from the Drama Department at the Nemirovich and Danchenko Moscow Art Theater’s School of Drama. He joined the Pushkin Theater company. Photo: Vladimir Vysotsky as Von Koren in Plokhoy Khoroshiy Chelovek (The Bad Good Man) (dir. Iosif Kheifits).
In 1964, Vysotsky joined the newly established Yury Lyubimov’s Moscow Theater of Drama and Comedy (Taganka Theater) where he played until he died. Photo: Vladimir Vysotsky in a scene from Ten Days that Shook the World by American journalist John Silas Reed.
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© RIA Novosti . Anatoliy Garanin
At the Taganka Theater, Vysotsky played his greatest stage roles, in Life of Galileo and Hamlet. He also played in such productions as The Good Person of Szechwan, Antiworls, The Fallen and the Living, Listen!, Pugachev, The Cherry Orchard, Crime and Punishment. Photo: Vladimir Vysotsky as Khlopusha in Pugachev, 1967.
Vysotsky tried his hand in songwriting in the early 1960s as Sergei Kuleshov. He would write about the criminal world and neither his first listeners nor Vysotsky himself found this endeavor serious.
Vysotsky worked on his voice to make it sound hoarse and very low, which would make it unrecognizable. Photo: French stage and film actress Marina Vlady and Vladimir Vysotsky in the audience.
Vysotsky became famous as a film actor after his role in Vertikal about a group of trouble-stricken alpinists.
Many remember Vladimir Vysotsky as the strict and charming investigator Gleb Zheglov in Mesto Vstrechi Izmenit Nelzya.
Perhaps, the best role played by Vysotsky was Hamlet. The production premiered at the Taganka Theater on November 19, 1971, when Vysotsky was 33.
Hamlet was his best and last role in theater when he appeared in the play on July 18, 1980, only seven days before his death. Photo: Vladimir Vysotsky as Hamlet, 1972.
Vysotsky toured with his concerts and visited France, the United States, Canada and many other countries. With the Taganka Theater, he toured Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, France, Germany and Poland. Photo: Vladimir Vysotsky in Yedinstvennaya Doroga, 1976.
His heart stopped at 4:10 a.m. on July 25, 1980, in his apartment on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. With the Moscow Olympic Games underway, there was no official announcement of his death. Only short notice appeared above the box office window in the Taganka Theater saying “Actor Vladimir Vysotsky has died.” None of those who bought tickets to his play returned them but kept them in remembrance…
