To make the interlocutor smile, Alexander Shirvindt does not even have to joke. It is enough to raise an eyebrow. How HE can do it. But we agreed at once - all jokes aside. After all, the conversation is about to be serious ...

There are men who, like expensive cognac, only get better and better quality over the years. Alexander Anatolyevich is one of them. For him and Porokhovshchikov and Yarmolnik are students. He was their teacher in the famous "Pike", although this is completely impossible to believe. However, there are a great many facts that are hard to believe in his biography. And "Atmosphere" decided to make sure how they correspond to reality.

For example, Shirvindt is very fond of boiled onions. Do you know a lot of such people? And here he is - yes, he loves. His wife, Natalia Nikolaevna, once admitted that, fortunately for herself, she found out about this incredible addiction rather late - otherwise, according to her, the family could not have taken place. And after the artist mentioned this from the blue screen, all the neighbors at the entrance began to bring a boiled onion from the broth every day to please the people's favorite.

- In the program for the new performance with your participation "Between light and shadow" it is written that a person is now experiencing a huge deficit of love and tenderness ...

Alexander Shirvindt:“Yes, I see this deficit around me. Modern man turns into a robot. The soul is atrophied. It is an unnecessary organ. "

Little Shura reflects on the tall, 1935.

- And if we talk about you personally? Is there a deficit of love and tenderness?

Shirvindt:“You don’t have to talk about me personally - everything that concerns love, affection and tenderness, I have long passed”.

- But the artist needs to be inspired by something.

Shirvindt:“I have a hard labor position, a residual profession ... I am a workaholic. I've been working all my life and I'm never late for anything. This is my scourge, my disaster. I look forward to students, artists, and friends. When the late Andryusha Mironov and I played creative evenings, we agreed to meet near the theater at five.

I arrive exactly at five, and he - at ten minutes past six. I think: next time I will come at ten minutes too. And he's fifteen late. And so on ad infinitum. Until I waved my hand and began to come again on time. This is what I say to the fact that the compulsion to serve is inertia, and inspiration is a little suspicious thing, invented by someone. "The brush reaches for the pen, the pen for the paper, a second - and the poems will flow freely ..." Nothing "flows" freely! "

- Do you like to remember your youth? Like, we were once also trotters ...

Shirvindt:“Sometimes you have to when asked. Yes, they were trotters, but of course! I’m an old runner, I spent a lot of my family budget, time and nerves on the racetrack. Then we were trotters too - when we looked at trotters. "

Sasha and Natasha met while still schoolchildren.

- Is it true that you gave your wife a bouquet of lilacs in winter? A bike or a reality?

Shirvindt:“It’s true, but it happened sixty years ago. Can you imagine? There are no such flowers left in Moscow - lilacs. Or is it still growing somewhere? In any case, lilacs are not given now ... I made an offer to her. I snuck into a botanical garden somewhere beyond Ostankino - an old one with greenhouses ... I don't know if it exists now. This same lilac grew there in winter. I bought it for quite a lot of money at that time and hit my future wife terribly in the psyche. "

- I wonder how you (or she) managed to keep the family nest “in this raging world”?

Shirvindt:“It's hard to say what the secret is. The main thing is that we are completely different people. They say that there must certainly be complete unity in the family. But in fact, it seems to me the opposite. She is an architect, now retired, but before she was quite famous in her field, she worked a lot, she has her own friends ... She really does not know what I do, and this is very important. Well, theater, premieres ... Wives who dissolve in their husbands - this is probably very good and a great help. But, I think, in the end it can go crazy - when someone constantly dissolves in you.

But parallel existence is air: she has her own creativity, I have mine. It turns out that not round the clock nose to nose. And so it runs for many years ... ”Alexander Anatolyevich and Natalia Nikolaevna met in the early 50s, when they were both still schoolchildren, in the summer cottage village of NIL, which her grandfather founded when he was the chief architect of Moscow.

There is a version that on initial stage acquaintance with Natalia Nikolaevna Shirvindt captivated in the girl first of all by the fact that she had ... a cow on her farm. As a pathological "milk addict", Shirvindt could not resist. However, having "fallen in love" with the cow, he gradually became interested in her mistress. They say that the decision on marriage was made hastily - Alexander just burst into the room and said: "Let's go to the registry office!" However, according to Natalia Nikolaevna, before that they had been together for seven years. Natalia Nikolaevna is an architect by profession. And by her roots - a columnar noblewoman. Her maternal lineage goes back to the famous Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, her paternal ancestors are from the old Moscow merchants.

Mikhail Shirvindt with his wife and daughter. Once upon a time, this respectable man drank liters of parental blood.

- You have a smooth family life was?

Shirvindt:“How smooth? Does this really happen? Sixty years of a smooth life - you have to be who? Amoeba? Even this ... how his ... octopus Paul died of stress - he was so tortured with all sorts of predictions that he could not stand it. And man is more complicated. "

- Did you turn the heads of women?

Shirvindt:“Well, they were spinning themselves. I didn't specialize myself. "

- Is it true that in the music school little Shura Shirvindt was remembered for a long time by the teachers?

Shirvindt:“Yes, in my fourth grade, I think I was kicked out of this school. That is, I was completely unbearable, well, as a musician at least. The subject of solfeggio was especially nightmarish for me - horror, on it I finally broke down. They put up with me for a long time because of my dad, and then they told him: "Excuse me - that's it!" I hated this musical education: at first they chased me at home with a violin, then they also sent me to school ... "

Alexander learned to play the violin since childhood and hated this occupation fiercely, especially solfeggio.

- From the very famous - Amati?

Shirvindt:“No, we got the Amati violin after the war. When I was already an adult. And then there was an ordinary little violin, they began to teach me from childhood. "

The mother of Alexander Anatolyevich Raisa Samoilovna was an actress in the first studio of the Moscow Art Theater. Father, Anatoly Gustavovich, played in the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater. Once during the war, when he was performing at the front with a concert brigade, a splinter hit the violin. Marshal Konev, who was nearby, ordered to immediately find a new violin for the artist. And - lo and behold! - found Amati's violin. Since then, she began to belong to Shirvindt's dad, then passed to Yankelevich, from him to Spivakov.

- How did you behave at school?

Shirvindt:"Badly. What do you want to create my portrait? Is it an epic canvas? "

“I’m just wondering how such a wrong and impartial boy grew into such a worthy family man, a respected teacher who has been guiding students on the right path for many years.

Shirvindt:“And what, there must be a good boy and an excellent student with fingers smeared with ink? No, my childhood was stormy, but happy. And in the future, the case is important. Life is a lottery. "

- Did you get a lucky ticket?

Shirvindt:"Not good. But in some basic things: parents, family, marriage, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren - everything is very nice and happy with me. Although, of course, this is suspicious. Another thing is that everything goes by very quickly ... Yesterday we were still trotters, and today ... already great-grandchildren. This is in a second. "

It is simply impossible to quarrel with Derzhavin, says Shirvindt after 65 years of friendship.

- You once were such a headache for your parents ... Then did it backfire with your son?

Shirvindt:“Now he has leveled off and there is already quite an adult uncle. And at first, yes, I was also joking. After all, he "graduated" from me four secondary schools - he has an "extensive" education. He constantly brought some terrible diary entries from teachers, blew up the toilet bowls ... Young chemist! We, parents, were constantly summoned to the director, but it was mostly mom who had to go there and blush. But, of course, I transferred him from school to school. "

- Well, how did you bring him up? They said: "Misha, come to your senses, you are a disgrace to our name"?

Shirvindt:"Spoke. Although ... Usually, in such cases, parents bother: "But dad at your age ..." And the only thing that I understood then - nothing should be left. Otherwise, your whole educational process ... Because when once again my son listened to a tirade on the theme "Here is your dad, and you ...", he came across my diaries miraculously preserved. And then he realized that he had a hereditary defect. Moreover, in comparison with me, he is still an excellent student. And this was the end of my upbringing. So the archives need to be burned! "

Another story is widely known from youth biography Mikhail Shirvindt. He entered the Shchukin Theater School, but was expelled from it after one November night, with a group of comrades, he managed to rip the Soviet flag from the Architectural Institute. This episode later appeared in Sergei Ursulyak's film Russian Ragtime.

- Is it true that Andrei Mironov restored your son to the Komsomol?

Shirvindt:“No, I didn’t restore it. The Komsomol never appeared in his life. Andryusha was just terribly worried about this story with me, in general, all friends tried to do something, to help, but to no avail. Mishka was never reinstated at the institute, and for a year and a half he was hanging out as a stage worker. "

- Are you now satisfied with what has grown out of it?

Shirvindt:“Well, what about - he is a serious person, he has his own company, he works very hard. When he was doing the program "Bravo, artist!", We even worked together at one time, I helped him. "

“I didn’t turn the heads of the women - they were spinning themselves.” A still from the film "A Million in a Marriage Basket".

- What happened to this program?

Shirvindt:“She calmed down somehow. There are too many such identical programs about destinies now. famous people... Misha's program "I want to know!" it turned out pretty precisely because it is original. And all these "memorable" - a billion, and all are alike. We need to invent something new. "

- Today you are sorely missed on television.

Shirvindt:"Come on! I flicker all the time. You probably don't just look. Not long ago I sat on the jury in “Minute of Glory”, “Who Wants to Become a Millionaire…” I sit somewhere all the time ”.

- Well, the jury is not that.

Shirvindt:“I can't skate anymore, I'm sorry. Igor Ugolnikov surprised me, my friend. He's also about fifty years old, but he's skating. That's what desire means! "

- What do you have fun with? How do you relax?

Shirvindt:“Fishing. And all these outrageous passions - alcoholic, partying ... The limit has been selected. Because well, we did so much at one time and with all sorts of jokes, and drinking, and all sorts of adventures ... We always came up with something! "

Alexander Anatolyevich never learned to be a strict artistic hand. In the photo - with Spartak Mishulin in a Carlson suit.

- Well, for example? What can you tell the heirs about?

Shirvindt:“No, it is not grafted. You have to be born with this. This is the first thing. And secondly, now is a completely different era: I wanted to drink after the performance - turn the corner, and please. And before there was one night restaurant in the whole city - at the Vnukovo airport. And a wild number of people - all sorts of punks, now famous old people - stuffed themselves into a single machine, into my "Victory". And they sawed at night in Vnukovo. There they ate, as I remember now, beef stroganoff, of course, with vodka. And that was ... And now, when everything is at hand ... Desires are really atrophied. "

- And what was your adventurousness? You are so peaceful in appearance, imperturbable, ironic.

Shirvindt:“My whole life is a gamble. Since how I became an actor. My parents were categorically against my entering the theater. Then I figured out that I was going to law school, and in every possible way pretended that I was fulfilling my parental will. Until the secret was revealed. Further more. My friend Misha Kozakov, already famous at that time ... Although we were of the same age, he had already managed to star in the film Murder on Dante Street, and his popularity was titanic. So: he immediately began to appear in the next film at Lenfilm. And then Okhlopkov invites him to play Hamlet at the Mayakovsky Theater. He, of course, refused to shoot. And slipped me over. They, too, rested their hands and feet: Kozakov is one thing, but who is this? But he is stubborn - he convinced, and I'm adventurous - I got in. It was 1957, the painting She Loves You. If you continue to count, then your magazine will not be enough to describe a series of my adventures. " (Incidentally, the fee for a small role young man by the name of Ukhov allowed the young Shura Shirvindt to acquire his famous Pobeda car. - Approx. auth.).

- What's new in the theater, what premieres are expected in the near future?

Shirvindt:“After the dramatic“ Between Light and Shadow ”by Tennessee Williams came the play“ Nancy ”- an English comedy directed by Vladimir Petrov. In the spring, the Satire Theater will present a play by Viktor Shenderovich with our wonderful Fyodor Dobronravov. And on March 8, on the birthday of Andrei Mironov, an anniversary evening “Hello! It's me!" - to Andryushin's 70th birthday ... This will be our family memory... Touching, with songs, dances and jokes. "

Asya calls her great-grandfather Shura and loves refueling lighters for him.

- Is it true that the audience is constantly expecting sparkling fun from you? I read somewhere that even when you went on stage in the role of Molchalin, people in the hall began to laugh out of inertia.

Shirwindt: “I don’t think ... Where does this information come from? In the Theater of Satire, even under Pluchek, there really was a similar problem. But it concerned only those who participated in the "Zucchini" 13 chairs ". I was not in it, so no one glued special labels. But the "kabachkovtsy", all our lords and ladies, were extremely popular just beyond the limit - it was impossible to get through, they poked a finger at them. Pluchek hated this "Zucchini" with all his heart, and his logic was correct. The same Spartak Mishulin, a wonderful artist, but his Pan Director was so popularly loved by the people that no one perceived him otherwise. And when in a serious performance based on Bulgakov's "Run" he appeared in the role of General Charnota, everyone shouted from the audience: "Pan Director!" Do you really think that's good?"

- You are also perceived as a person who constantly jokes.

Shirvindt:“Of course, I have some kind of trail - humorous, ironic. And nevertheless, when I play something serious (Moliere, for example), they don't seem to laugh. Remember the same Molchalin ... "

- His favorite qualities - moderation and accuracy - are you typical of you?

Shirvindt:“Moderation, probably, yes, but accuracy - no. I have everything scattered. Sometimes they ask: show your collection of pipes. I say: I do not have a collection, I have a dump of pipes. "

The duet with Andrei Mironov was a real fireworks display of humor and practical jokes.

- They say you made some kind of your own tobacco, branded.

Shirvindt:“We made the tobacco ourselves, but not out of a good life, but out of hopelessness - it just wasn't there. Three varieties were sold throughout the country. The sheet there was good, but "unfinished": it was simply chopped, dried, packed in bundles, and this "plywood" was sold. We bought all three varieties, the contents poured out onto the newspaper, rubbed, dripped a little cognac on top, then a plastic bag was taken ... And the plastic bag then existed only in one form - from under Chinese shirts. Therefore, the shirt was thrown to the side, tobacco was poured into the bag, and several apple slices could also be cut into the bag, best of all Antonovka. Or potatoes. At that time there were double frames on the windows - and all this was hung between them in the sun and swept. After that, the leaf was rubbed again and remotely began to resemble branded tobacco. "

- You have two state orders. What is your contribution?

Shirvindt:"Probably in seniority ... Fanaberia - oh, I created this and did it - not in my line."

- Do you feel like a master?

Shirvindt:"Not at all. And this is my scourge, my grief. "

- Do you really have golden hands?

Shirvindt:“At one time I was a carburetor specialist. Among the intelligentsia he was reputed to be very experienced. All our punks came to me, and I fixed their carburetors. This was my passion. And then there appeared the first timid opportunities for individual citizens to buy some decommissioned foreign car. A deceased friend of mine, through his wild connections in the Office of the Diplomatic Corps, bought himself a Ford - a huge, 726-year-old, but a Ford! We all came to see this miracle. The Ford drove for several days and got up. The agony began for its restoration from the ashes. The beauty of the situation was that naturally there were no spare parts available for him. It got to the point that the car, again through some wild connections, was transported to the ZIL. And local craftsmen, who assembled government cars, undertook to grind out a certain part for the gearbox with their own hands. And what do you think? Ford drove with this part! I drove another ten kilometers - and the carburetor was covered. Well, here it is to me! I remember now - a huge two-chamber carburetor. Usually, I took apart "Pobeda", "Moskvich", a little "Volga" - I did this literally with closed eyes... And here - the carburetor itself is the size of a "Victory"! But I took it. Dismantled it - and there are a billion parts, screws, jets. I'm in a panic: that's it! It is unrealistic to remember what, how and where it stood. But I put it together. True, there was a mountain of superfluous left. I took it apart on the sheet so as not to lose anything. And at the end I folded this sheet over the edges with about two kilograms of iron. And what do you think? She started up, this foreign car! And my deceased friend was able to drive away from my house. And even twenty meters he drove for sure ... And then she stood up forever. Here's a story. "

"How many we once screwed up with jokes, and drinking, and all sorts of adventures ..."

- You and Derzhavin have been together for so many years ... It is already unclear who you are to each other - friends or relatives. Who you are?

Shirvindt:“It's completely incomprehensible. We are connected by such an umbilical cord that there is no point in figuring out what's what. I knew him even earlier than my wife - that is, sixty-five years, no less. He is my friend, and comrade, and colleague, and now he is also a subordinate. "

- Are you generally a strict boss, tough?

Shirvindt:"No. Here Pluchek could be a tough leader when necessary. He was a skillful and real artistic director. There are very few of them. An artistic director is such a definite animal, here you need an exact conglomerate of qualities. "

- Do your colleagues twist ropes out of you?

Shirvindt:"Ropes are not ropes, but ropes are knitted."

- And it was such that you and Derzhavin had a falling out, the cat ran?

Shirvindt:"No. This is inconceivable. It is impossible to quarrel with him. It is completely anti-conflict, to the point of disgrace. "

In 2008, the Shirvindt couple played their golden wedding.

- What do your grandchildren do?

Shirvindt:“Sasha, granddaughter, is an art critic, a specialist in Italian painting. Loves Italy. Andryusha is a major lawyer in the field of civil law, teaches at Moscow State University. When he was five years old, he starred in a movie, and on this his actor career ended safely. Now he has already made me the great-grandfather of the adorable girl Asya. She's eight years old".

- And how do you feel as a great-grandfather?

Shirvindt:“She calls me Shura, not great-grandfather. We are friends, we write poems together: one line - she, the other - me. She loves refueling lighters. There is also a lighter dump in my pipe dump. She knows - which gas, which electric, and very skillfully does it. "

- You write poetry ...

Shirvindt:"Household".

- And how long?

Shirvindt:“Well, as always - from childhood. Basically, these are congratulations or some kind of joke couplets. Asya also owns rhymes to everyone family holidays be sure to write the poem: "Hello, Shura, be healthy, do not forget about the doctors."

- And the table? About high?

Shirvindt:“No, nothing about high. Only about the low. "

One of the artists once said that his appearance is already a performance in itself. It is enough for this actor to walk across the stage, to appear in the frame - and the viewer will laugh. “I am a handsome old man afraid of becoming helpless. In general, the diagnosis is "old age of moderate severity." - the ability to hide and mix so much humor, wisdom, sadness into each of your phrases - not everyone can do it.

Once Mark Zakharov wrote in his book:

“Shirvindt is probably not an artist after all ... Especially not a director. If you ask who he is, I will answer that his profession is unique. He is Shirvindt. "
Quotes from books and interviews by People's Artist of Alexander Shirvindt:

1. I am simply not interested in collective thinking. I like living my mind more ...

2. It is impossible to exist in a round-the-clock, non-passing feeling of hatred, irritation, rejection, a sense of trouble and grief. There should be oases, gleams. Life is one ... So inside any nightmare one should try to look for positive emotions.

3. The human soul is like a moonshine still - all filth is poured into it, and a real elixir comes out!

4. Let's swear with what is left!

5. With age, everything is concentrated in a person - all the parameters of the mind and heart. But there is also physiology, it dominates all parameters by the age of 80. When you neither sit down nor get up, then everything obeys this, and "physics" begins to dictate. When you get up, and your knee does not unbend, you become mean, and angry, and greedy. And at the same time. And if the knee miraculously unbent, then everything is ready to give, not to regret anything.

For the first time I understood the meaning of the expression "weak at the knees" twenty years ago - it turns out that this is when, firstly, they hurt, secondly, they bend poorly and, thirdly, become weak. I turned to two familiar luminaries on the knees - both gave diametrically opposite recommendations, and decided to wear my knees as they are, because I can't afford new ones.

6. Me alone good doctor calmed. “Dates are all nonsense. The age of a person, he said, is determined not by dates, but by his being. " Sometimes, for a very short time, I am somewhere around 20 years old. And sometimes I'm under 100.

7. Cowardice is the sister of panic. I'm not afraid of death. I am afraid for my loved ones. I'm afraid of accidents for friends. I'm afraid to look old. I'm afraid of gradual dying, when I have to grab onto something and someone ... "Our Everything" wrote very correctly: "My uncle has the most honest rules when he got seriously ill ..." As a young man, I thought that this was a preamble and not more. Now I understand that this is the most important thing in the novel.

8. Modern man experiences a huge deficit of love and tenderness and turns into a robot. The soul is atrophied - it is an unnecessary organ. There is no need to talk about me personally - everything that concerns love, affection and tenderness, I have long passed.

9. They say that there should be complete unity in the family. But in fact, it seems to me the opposite. My wife is an architect, now retired, but before she was quite famous in her field, she worked a lot, she has her own friends ... She really does not know what I do, and this is very important. Well, theater, premieres ... Wives who dissolve in their husbands - this is probably very good and a great help. But, I think, in the end it can go crazy - when someone constantly dissolves in you. But parallel existence is air: she has her own creativity, I have mine. It turns out that not round the clock nose to nose. And so it runs for many years ...

10. I can't say that I got a lucky ticket in my life. But in some basic things: parents, family, marriage, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren - everything is very nice and happy with me. Although, of course, this is suspicious.

11. The main thing in life is obstinacy, obstinacy. Although the future of a person will be determined by genetics. I am sure that upbringing, education is nonsense. It all depends on what is in you.

12. Natalia Nikolaevna and I were in love too old-fashioned. 50th year. This is the middle of the last century. Wow ... So our love included all these innocent "riorites", bonfires in companies, country gatherings with dances and charades, gentle sighs in the moonlight ... Well, who can now be interested in these dilapidated relationships, when from the pages of magazines and on on tv we learn about true, passionate love among jacuzzis, yachts and pools, born under the scorching equatorial sun of the Bahamas.

13. Shakespeare was absolutely right: the world is theater! For example, I watch a meeting of the Duma and see the deputies who have been sitting in this hall for years and do not open their mouths. What are they needed for? Why are they sitting there? And then I understand that this is an extra. Theater is impossible without extras. This theatricality of existence concerns not only the Duma, but absolutely all spheres of our life.

14. “I always try to convey a simple truth to the students: they will not have anything happier than these four years in an incubator. Further, creative torment, envy, intrigues, games of chances will begin, therefore, while studying, absorbing everything that is possible - it would be from someone, you need to use your happiness to the fullest.


15. “Our generation was crushed by censorship, but if you think about it, then there was a huge team of editors, erudite, amazingly thin people who did not allow anything“ below the belt ”to go out - both literally and figuratively. And now, scribble - whatever you want, if you bought the ether. Of course, there are talents - the same phenomenal Maxim Galkin, or my beloved Vanka Urgant, whom I have known since childhood, or Yura Galtsev, but they also work without a qualification, and, in addition, they must engage in the production of humor around the clock, which is why they involuntarily start glitches of taste. They themselves understand this, but now there is such a rating competition that if you’re not joking for half an hour, they can forget. The pursuit of round-the-clock leads to meaninglessness. "

16. “Well, they say obscene language, you can't express yourself ... Of course, if they swear, they swear - it's awful! And this is how I speak, this is my language. I haven't studied abusive English. You must know the language of the country in which you live. And I speak the language of my country. "

17. “A tasty meal for me is mashed potatoes, sprats, buckwheat porridge with sour cream (they eat cold buckwheat porridge with milk, and hot - with sour cream). I love cheese. Stone, strong, strong, "Soviet", similar to "Parmesan". I also like processed cheese "Friendship" ... I was brought up in Spartan conditions of drinking and gathering in kitchens. In the garage, on the hood of the car, a newspaper was being laid out, liver sausage, a loaf, and a cucumber were quickly sliced. Bastard! And it's already good at once. When I go to fashionable restaurants today ... they bring in thick, embossed-leather-bound menus ... I immediately get heartburn. It used to be easier in restaurants too: you quickly rub mustard on the bread, sprinkled with salt on top, wave it under the glass - and it’s already “primed”. Well, then you order what they can get in their bins ”.

18. “Computers do not even know which side they are stuck in and where ... When my little grandchildren were playing at the computer, I nodded thoughtfully to them, not even realizing what it was about. Until now, a computer mouse for me is something alive and scary, like a rat, and the word "site" is associated with something urinary. Therefore, when I have to go to the site, they put me in front of the screen, like a doll, and show me. "

19 ... ... we probably won't have another time. And therefore we must live in the present time, not deceiving ourselves in any way.

20. Today, the eternal concepts are completely devalued: if “authority” is only criminal, if “leader” is only political. We used to rush to communism, now to enrichment. Both are ghosts. We opened boutiques all around, we stage musicals. In everything, Western secondaryism is strung on Russian reality. And the more expensive, the more secondary.

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Alexander Anatolyevich Shirvindt - born on July 19, 1934, Moscow. Soviet and Russian actor theater and cinema, theater director and screenwriter. National artist RSFSR. From 2000 to the present, he has been the artistic director of the Moscow Academic Theater of Satire.

Quotes, aphorisms, sayings, phrases - Alexander A. Shirvindt

  • At my age, I do not look, I look younger, because I turn gray from below.
  • You don't need to take everyone by the handle. And not everyone should be given a pen in their hands either.
  • And in general, it is difficult to determine by their faces whether they need to go to the theater or not.
  • We used to rush to communism, now to enrichment. Both are ghosts.
  • Old age is not when you forget, but when you forget where you wrote it down so as not to forget.
  • I am simply not interested in collective thinking. I like living my mind more.
  • A good director and a good art director are completely different professions.
  • If without a pose, for me decency - so that I would not be ashamed in front of myself around three o'clock in the morning.
  • Satire is no longer mine, it means anger. Self-irony is closer to me - this is salvation from everything that is around.
  • Satire should only be alarming. If the addressee of satire is not a complete idiot, he will be on the alert, smelling arrows.
  • I scream only at those I love: the louder the scream, the stronger the feeling. With people who are indifferent to me, I am quiet and intelligent.
  • Today, the eternal concepts are completely devalued: if “authority” is only criminal, if “leader” is only political.
  • Now there is such a rating competition that you are not joking for half an hour - they can forget. The pursuit of 24/7 leads to meaninglessness.
  • We opened boutiques all around, we stage musicals. In everything, Western secondaryism is strung on Russian reality. And the more expensive, the more secondary.
  • A strange acting disease is the habit of being recognizable. The horror of this disease is that recognition sometimes disappears, but addiction to it never.
  • Sometimes they say to me: "You know, they wrote such nasty things about you!" Why should I read this? First, half of what was written is a lie. Secondly, everything is written illiterately.
  • According to Oppenheimer, only women, children, animals and crazy people can be happy on Earth. This means that our male destiny is to make those listed happy.
  • It's very scary when your life will be rewritten. You will die and all your bunks and letters will be shaken up. So, little by little, individuality turns into the versions of researchers.
  • Because of those who became an actor not from God, but from education, confusion arises in the theater. After all, no one can recognize himself as an actor of the second, third or fourth grade.
  • As for women, there comes a terrible age when you have to be friends with them. Since there are no skills, this work is difficult. Involuntarily pulls on hopeless coquetry.
  • I, you know, with terrible torment and stupidity all my life I'm rooting for "Torpedo". They used to shout: ah, we don't have football! Why? Small salary. Now they pay more than there - and not a fig.
  • With age, we all the time overcome all sorts of vices, and when, finally, everything is overcome, a huge amount of time is formed, which has nothing to occupy. Here fishing helps out.
  • Real artistic directors have an internal strategy of behavior: "carrot and stick". Many of my friends also called me to this position. I nodded in agreement and even tried, but alas. When the stick is in the hands of the carrot ...
  • I have always been shy and now I am ashamed of various political programs. I've seen enough of them that when even the brightest ideas are defended with foam at the mouth, I get bored, I suspect this is another stupidity.
  • You cannot laugh only at idiocy: when a person is absorbed in some idiotic idea, you cannot move him. He can only get angry, fight back. In a joke, in irony, there is still hope that the subject of irony will hear it.
  • Pedagogy is vampirism pure water... Judging by myself. After all the professional torment you come to these young puppies, you see them long legs and bulging eyes and involuntarily you begin to feed on them with stupidity and naivety.
  • A life in short supply gave an impulse of energy. In the spiritual, intellectual sphere- the same thing: lack of freedom, lack of sharp words, lack of open laughter. There was the happiness of finding. Now take it - I don’t want to. And what to do with this energy of desire?
  • If a football player, as an actor, does not communicate, does not feel the breath of the audience and does not care about everything, then this is a machine, technique and delirium. Emotion, talent, play and spectator! And here, and there - the viewer. You cannot play in empty halls - and you cannot play in empty stadiums.
  • I really hope for a crisis. It seems to me that he is closer to our mentality than wealth. When these mansions were set shoulder to shoulder, they were instructed at the entrances of "Hummers" - Russia lost its face. And now we need to slowly return to a piece of tomato and cheese "Druzhba" ... After all, it was not so long ago. And delicious.
  • I always try to convey a simple truth to students: they will not have anything happier than these four years in an incubator. Further, creative torment, envy, intrigues, games of chances will begin, therefore, during study, absorbing everything that is possible - it would be from someone, you need to use your happiness to the fullest.
  • 60 years ago, they did not swear at the stadiums, did not drink, did not fight with dissenting fans in the stands, did not kill players for a goal in their own goal, did not bribe the judges. The most that they could was to make soap out of them. With the post-war shortage of this product, the forty thousand exhalation of the "judge on the soap" sounded like a real threat.
  • The degree of "yellowness" has become very difficult to determine, since sometimes even serious newspapers allow themselves to publish such publications. It is impossible to understand at a glance which newspaper is yellow, green or blue. When interest is built on an alcove, on illness, on death, it is beyond the limits of not only conscience, but also humanity. Public controversy has sunk to the level of the bedroom and toilet.
  • Drama artists break their legs in figure skating to discredit this great sport. Those who are physically unable to skate put on boxing gloves and beat each other's muzzles, forgetting that their muzzles are being fed. And those who do not know how to do anything at all and are afraid of everything, chop a sluggish salad on all TV channels under the scrutiny of amateurs from cooking. Dilettantism is sweeping the planet.

“You know… a strange feeling of endless waiting and longing. Never before in my life have I missed anyone or anything as I miss you now ... At times, nothing, and at times it will hurt so much that even cry, - this is how I wrote to my wife on August 3, 1954.
A well-known wit, the first "womanizer" of Russian cinema, a favorite of millions of viewers, a talented actor, director, teacher, artistic director of the Moscow Academic Theater of Satire, Alexander Anatolyevich turned out to be a one-lover, married once and forever on the hereditary architect Natalya Nikolaevna Belousova.
From his future wife, 14-year-old Natalya 15-year-old Shirvindt met in the summer of 1951 at a dacha near Istra. He played with her friend in the amateur performance “Guilty Without Guilt”. Alexander was very fond of milk, his parents constantly took it from neighbors who had a cow. When he came to visit Natalya after he met, he tasted milk from their cow, wanted to try it again and, as he jokes today, "first fell in love with the cow, and only then with the owners' daughter." Natasha asked for help with mathematics, but Shirvindt was a layman in exact sciences and turned to a friend who began to solve problems for him and retell them over the phone.
Alexander made an offer to the girl 7 years after they met. During the winter session, Natalya was preparing for the exam at home, the bell rang, Shirvindt came in, took off his coat and said: “Let's go to the registry office,” and put a huge package in front of the bride. Unfolding it, the girl froze - a blooming bush of pale pink lilac ...
Alexander Anatolyevich continues to love milk today. He is unpretentious tasty food for Shirvindt it is mashed potatoes, sprats, buckwheat porridge with sour cream, strong, even stone cheese.
- Shura is an excellent fisherman, moreover, very successful, - says Mikhail Derzhavin about his friend and colleague. So on his 80th birthday, which fell on July 19, 2014, Shirvindt fled to a distant lake, where he smoked a pipe and fished.
“For me, this is the best scenario that can be,” the hero of the occasion assured everyone who congratulated him.
Shirvindt is also an excellent motorist. He bought his first car with royalties from his film debut. It was the picture She Loves You, filmed in 1956. But everything could be different. Logically, Alexander Anatolyevich was supposed to become a musician. Well, who else can a son, whose father is a violinist.
- Since childhood, I was taught to play the violin, - confirms Shirvindt. - I hid from her all the time in the toilet. But in a communal apartment near the Nikitsky Gate, where seven more families lived with us, you won't sit out for a long time in the toilet. I was quickly kicked out of there, and I again fell into the clutches of the violin. They fought with me for six years and, in the end, was kicked out of the music school.
And although a musician from Shirvindt did not work out, he still plays the violin, which he demonstrated more than once at creative evenings and in performances. But his acting destiny was quite successful. Immediately after graduating from the Shchukin School, he was invited to the Lenin Komsomol Theater, where he served from 1956 to 1968, performing about 30 roles. Then he moved to the theater on Malaya Bronnaya, but not for long. Soon the artistic director of the Theater of Satire, the famous Valentin Pluchek, made a flattering offer to Shirvindt - to play Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro. According to the entry in work book, since March 1, 1970, the actor has been serving in the theater for Triumfalnaya Square... And now, for almost fifteen years, he is the head of his own collective. However, even those who have never been to the theater know what Shirvindt is an artist. Because for long life in art he managed to appear in many films. And although he mostly gets the supporting roles, by his presence in the frame he is already able to ensure the success of the film, as happened, for example, with the legendary "Irony of Fate".
- He's not an artist. Moreover, not a director. His profession is unique. He is Shirvindt, - this is how Mark Zakharov wrote in his time. Alexander Anatolyevich has statements that are wonderful, and most importantly, reveal him with humor and wisdom peace of mind... Here are just a few of them:
“Only women, children, animals and madmen can be happy on earth. And our male destiny is to make the listed people happy ”;
“I’m with everyone. This is my position in life. To "you" means, I welcome the naturalness, sincerity of communication. This is not familiarity, but camaraderie ... ";
“I scream only at those I love: the louder the scream, the stronger the feeling. With people who are indifferent to me, I am quiet and intelligent ”;
"Old age is not when you forget, but when you forget where you wrote it down so as not to forget."


An entire era has fit into the life of this amazing couple. The era of love, mutual respect, endless life wisdom. They are so different - Alexander and Natalia, Kis and Tatka. They are so the same: in love with life, with creativity, with each other. Their lives cannot be divided into two parts. Perhaps because their love story began so long ago that it is simply impossible to imagine them without each other.

Alexander



Future star actor was born and raised in an amazing creative environment. Mom, Raisa Samoilovna, in her youth was an actress of the Moscow Art Theater, and then an editor at the Moscow Philharmonic. Anatoly Gustavovich, violinist of the Bolshoi Theater, later - a music teacher.

Sasha, contrary to expectations, did not shine at the music school. After five years of training, the ego was practically kicked out, deciding that he had no musical inclinations. Classes at the school of ballroom dancing at the House of Scientists gave the youngest Shirvindt real pleasure. Especially polonaise and padegras.

The family had a unique atmosphere. The family was friends with many famous actors who were in the house of the Shirwindts. It is not surprising that the boy chose the theater for his future. And to begin with, he began performing in an amateur theater, gradually approaching his cherished dream of becoming an actor.

Natalia



Natalia turned out to be real pillar noblewoman, as Shirvindr himself says about her. The roots of her family tree lead far into the depths of the centuries, even to Semenov-Tianshansky. Natalia's grandfather was the chief architect of the capital. And Natalia dreamed of one day designing beautiful and comfortable buildings, just like her grandfather, uncle, brother.

For the summer, the whole family went to the dacha, to the village of NIL. It was here that Natasha loved to be most of all, spending time with pleasure in the company of her peers. The village was designed and built under the guidance of her grandfather and is intended for the creative intelligentsia: writers, composers, architects. Here in 1951 she met Sasha.


The first love



Shirvindt fell in love once. One, but at once for life. They met in a dacha village near Moscow. Alexander immediately noticed a pretty neighbor in the country. Natalia, a charming girl from a family of hereditary architects, has always been surrounded by the attention of boys. Cheerful, kind, open, she just could not help but like her. But how could she resist the pressure of a handsome man who constantly sought to be there, help, support, surprise. They were about 15 years old and in those chaste times they were just friends. But day after day everything became closer friend friend.

Summer has flown by, it would seem that children's sympathy will quickly be forgotten, recede. But Sasha and Natasha continued to meet already in Moscow. Youth, love, romance of recognition and understanding. Understanding that this is the very feeling that needs to be preserved.
Shirvindt once could not think of anything better than to stand on his head in front of his beloved in order to surprise her.

Love and life in letters


Letters. / Photo: from the book "Passage yards of the biography"

Alexander, as he wanted, entered the Shchukin School, Natalya - at the Institute of Architecture. They worried about each other during the sessions, and they celebrated their successful end by all means together. They did not always have enough time for meetings, they began to write letters to each other. Lovely, touching, filled with tender care. They open huge world feelings and great love. The restrained screen image of Shirvindt the actor is crumbling. Deep, sensitive, loving, romantic.

He describes to Natalia all his experiences, creative throwings. And bored. Every day, every hour, every minute. He is worried if he does not receive a letter in the mail. He should receive letters from Tatka every day. Without them, he feels lonely. He loves, he suffocates without her eyes, words, hands. He writes to her in lectures, on trains, in hotels.


Letter from Natalia. / Photo from the book "Walkways of the biography"

It would seem that there is nothing special in these letters of the two lovers. The usual confessions, the usual description of events around. But what an abyss of worldly wisdom opens up in them, an amazing clarity in the vision of their joint future. Even a simple description of a mattress or bed from a furniture store becomes a kind of ode to love and happiness.

Happiness for two

They had known each other for seven years, when Alexander decided that it was no longer possible to live like this. On a frosty January day, he burst into Natalia with the words: "Let's go to the registry office." Briefly and very succinctly. And with a flourish he put an unimaginably huge paper bundle on the table. Natalia had to shoot layer by layer to see its contents. A large bush of blooming snow-white lilacs. In January 1957, in Moscow! It was a real miracle. It turns out that the actor managed to charm the attendants Botanical Garden that they felt the peculiarity of the moment and the need for lilac magic for their beloved.


At first, the newlyweds lived in a huge communal apartment where the Shirvindt family lived. Natasha, accustomed to a spacious apartment designed by her grandfather, absolutely calmly endured the move to much more modest conditions, sincerely believing that the most important thing is to be close to her beloved, and then they will be able to achieve everything themselves.

And so it happened. A few years later, having made several incredible exchanges, the young family of Natalia and Alexander will already find themselves in an elite house on Kotelnicheskaya embankment in the center of Moscow.

"We will live with you with a capital letter and with great feelings, without speculation and most importantly - without sacrifices!"


Tours, rehearsals, shooting with him, interesting projects. The discovery of new objects from her. Between them are thousands of kilometers and thin strings of letters and telegrams.


In 1958 their son Misha was born. Pride and Hope. Alexander came to Moscow from another tour and almost went mad, looking for his wife in all maternity hospitals in Moscow. He was angry with the nurse who could not tell how his beloved Tatka was feeling.


A note to the maternity hospital. / Photo: from the book "Passage yards of the biography"

He worried that after the pain he had endured, she would stop loving him, he wanted to see her and his son. Natasha, infinitely happy, tried to discern the familiar features of her lover on her little face. He wrote to her again, demanded to appear in the window at least for a second. They grew up together, reaching those heights that they only dreamed of in their youth. And they set themselves more and more new goals.

The secret of happiness



The days flew by like an instant. Behind the shoulders of Alexander Anatolyevich and Natalya Nikolaevna for almost sixty years happy marriage... Rumors and gossip were gone. But not because there were none. Simply because they trusted each other immensely. Their love was stronger.
Today they are still together and still happy, enjoy life, the success of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Their secret turned out to be quite simple. They never dissolved in each other. They were always interested in the two of them, because each is an integral person, with his own character, his hobbies. They did not interfere with each other, but supported at the right time. Alexander Shirvindt is pleased to say that, unfortunately, he turned out to be a one-woman man. Natalya Nikolaevna picks up that this is - to her happiness.



In 2013, Alexander Shirvindt's book "Passage Yards of the Biography" was published. It contains part of the correspondence between Natalia Nikolaevna and Alexander Anatolyevich. A touching testimony to their endless love.

Sometimes it seems that the artist is always playing. On stage, in movies, in life. There was no place for play in the love story, there was real bright joy and happiness in it.