Prudkin Mark: the movie camera will not replace live communication with the audience

Since childhood he has dreamed only of one thing: the career of an opera singer. But after playing several roles in amateur theatricals, I decided to become an actor. To a wide audience he is known for roles in their favorite films: "12 chairs" (1976) - Bartholomew Korobeinikov, "The Brothers Karamazov" (1968) - Fyodor Pavlovich and "The Blonde is around the corner" (1984) Gavril Maksimovich, father of Nicholas. Probably, everyone has already guessed that we are talking about one of the pillars of Soviet cinema. So, Mark Mark Prudkin, People's Artist of the Soviet Union.

Childhood and the tree of the genus

Little Marik was born in the town of Klin (Moscow province) on the fourteenth day of September 1898. All childhood and youthful years of the boy passed on their native land.

His family lived modestly enough. His ancestors - both grandfather and father (Isaak Lvovich Prudkin) were also residents of this town. They were engaged in tailoring. Almost all of the townspeople were their customers. In addition, peasants from the villages in the neighborhood came to them with orders. Tailors did not break the price for their work, and sometimes they could sew in installments. Therefore, there were no special problems with clients.

From the outside, it might seem that this family is fairly well-off. But Prudkin Mark remembered quite another thing: while still a boy, he (at the request of his father) ran with notes to familiar villagers to lend for a few days five or ten rubles. Then the whole big family could reach out to the nearest "salary". And yet, although not all childhood memories were joyful, the actor Mark Prudkin always with special tenderness and warmth remembered his mother, father, his whole family and his native land - the town of Klin.

Dreams Dreams...

If you understand, Mark Isaakovich absolutely did not dream to see himself on the stage or in front of the camera lens. He really wanted to become an opera singer. The first role of the future actor took place when he was still a student of a real school, on the stage of an amateur theater. When he was only 15 years old (1913), his character was a warrior in the play "Life for the Tsar." Approximately at the same age he was expected and the first failure of the artist. He then read Pushkin, "Slanderers of Russia." Suddenly he forgot all the text in the middle. Marik escaped from the stage, and at home, calling himself a loser, I was sure that his career in the theater was over.

Two years passed before Prudkin Mark again tried his luck on the same stage. They put the play of A. Ostrovsky "Poverty is not a vice". Everyone could try their skills in acting. Many sought to play the role of Lyubim Tortsov, even a contest was held. As a result, Tortsov played Mark Prudkin.

After the premiere, which was more than successful, one of the teachers turned to Mark's parents with the words that unlike others, playing like a child, their offspring played like a real artist. The performance ended long ago, the noise of applause died down, and in the soul of young Prudkin a real storm of emotions raged. And after several decades he very clearly remembered his feelings after the performance. His colleagues on the stage forgot about the premiere immediately after its termination, they returned to their daily affairs. But Mark was as if possessed. He felt an inexplicable loss and experienced that this could not happen again.

Then there was the role of Mizgir in the play "The Snow Maiden" (the younger brother of Peter Ilyich - Modest Tchaikovsky, invited to the premiere, expressed his thanks and praise to Mark and assured him that he has very good stage abilities) and other theatrical works.

"I will be an actor!"

In Klin, a circle of friends' art under the direction of Vladimir Rubtsov begins to work. Mark Prudkin, whose biography represents an amazing mix of talent, perseverance, desire to create and a huge love for art, decided to go there. The actors who were members of this circle played absolutely free of charge, because all the money that was possible to get out of the performances went to the help of needy people.

To enter the Moscow Art Theater, Mark had to go to Moscow. At the entrance exams, he showed his talents so well that he was accepted.

Until the end of the school at that time was still a year, so he was enrolled in the studio, issued a certificate and sent to finish his home.

"To Moscow, to Moscow" ...

Soon Prudkin Mark returns to Moscow and plays in the second studio of the Moscow Art Theater. For six years he had different images: Karl Mohr in The Robbers, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Prince Myshkin in The Idiot, Volodya in the Green Ring ... In 1924, the Moscow Art Theater School graduated Work. Everyone who worked there joined the troupe of the Moscow Art Academic Theater as if it were his second generation. They, regardless of the role that it was necessary to play, set a very high bar, which they never, under any circumstances, did not reduce.

At first Prudkin played romantic men, conquerors of gentle women's hearts - Don Luis, Karl Moore ... He became really famous only in 28 years after work in the play "Days of Turbins" (his character is Adjutant Shervinsky). The success was overwhelming. A little later, the boundaries of acting began to be tested, which the young actor liked very much. Mark Prudkin saw his vocation in living on the scene an infinite number of new lives. In the image he created, he could combine external comic and inner ruthlessness. Ostrovsky's plays contributed to the fact that the audience saw the actor diverse, one of his roles absolutely did not resemble the other. Prudkin said that the exact images are obtained from memories of the city of Klin and the townspeople.

Road to the screen

In 1961 Prudkin played one of his best theatrical roles - Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. And after eight years, director Ivan Pyryev invites him to the same role in the adaptation of the novel. Prudkin did not particularly like cinematography, but Pyryev was not such a man to throw his idea halfway. And Prudkin himself decided to try his hand, especially in the company of Kirill Lavrov, Mikhail Ulyanov and Alexei Myagkov. As a result, an enormous prize and luck for Pyriev was the invitation to the picture of Mark Prudkin.

After such an amazingly delightful film debut, Mark Prudkin turned out to be invited to many films. But he did not agree to everything. In his creative track record there are interesting pictures - "Twelve Chairs", "The Blonde is around the corner", "Solo for hours with the fight", "Swan song", "Choice of the goal" and others. But the actor was sure that even the best production could not replace the live communication of the actor from the stage of the theater with the audience in the hall.

In his last period of life, Mark Prudkin played with the young talents of the Moscow Art Theater. Maitre treated the new generation with some irritation and admiration. He did not understand their attitude to the stage action, but he kindly admired how quickly they can enter the role without changing their minds after the performance: "it was possible - it was not possible".

Already quite an old man (this is 1983) Prudkin embodied on the stage the role of Pontius Pilate in the play "A Candleligh Ball". It was a kind of reading of the Master and Margarita. And this performance was staged by a young and very talented director Vladimir Markovich Prudkin, his son.

A long and happy life lived Prudkin Mark Isaakovich. His personal life, too, seems to have developed, but in recent years, and especially the days, it was only his son Volodya. His 96th birthday actor met in the hospital. He was cheerful, joking, even gave an impromptu medical staff. And the next day he suddenly weakened and almost always slept. My son had to return from a trip abroad to be with his father at this time. He recognized his boy and even asked about the result of the trip. But then the temperature rose and rose. On September 24, Mark Prudkin left this mortal world.

His body was resting on the Novodevichy Cemetery, "in the neighborhood" with his colleagues - Oleg Borisov, Evgeny Leonov, Sergei Bondarchuk ...