Oleg Basilashvili | |
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Born |
Oleg Basilashvili 26 September 1934 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
Years active | 1955 – present |
Awards |
Oleg Basilashvili (Russian: Оле́г Валериа́нович Басилашви́ли,Georgian: ოლეგ ბასილაშვილი, born 26 September 1934) is a well-known Soviet/Russian film and theatre actor, as well as political figure in the former Soviet Union and in the new Russia.
Born to a family of mixed Russian, Polish, and Georgian origin. He's half-Russian.
Oleg Valerianovich Basilashvili was born on 26 September 1934 in Moscow, USSR. His father, named Valerian Basilashvili, was a director of the Moscow Polytechnical College. His mother, named Irina Ilyinskaya, was a teacher of linguistics.
His father made up a humorous story that his grandfather had once arrested a dangerous criminal, named Dzhugashvili, who was really Joseph Stalin. In reality Basilashvili's maternal grandfather was a Russian orthodox priest and an architect, who participated in the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. During the Second World War young Oleg Basilashvili was evacuated from Moscow to the Transcaucasian republic of Georgia. There young Basilashvili went to a primary school and lived with his paternal grandfather until the end of World War II.
In 1956 Oleg Basilashvili graduated from the Acting School of the Moscow Art Theatre (MkHAT), where he had studied under Pavel Massalsky. His group was one of the most talented: among his group mates there was Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev, Mikhail Kozakov and Tatiana Doronina, his first wife. He made his film debut as a young groom in film Nevesta (aka The Bride, 1956) by director Grigori Nikulin based on a story by Anton Chekhov. At that time together with his first wife, Tatiana Doronina, Basilashvili joined the troupe at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) in Leningrad under the leadership of the legendary director Georgi Tovstonogov. Since 1959 Basilashvili has been a permanent member of the troupe at the BDT in St. Petersburg. There his stage partners were such stars as Kirill Lavrov, Tatyana Doronina, Alisa Freindlich, Lyudmila Makarova, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Zinaida Sharko, Valentina Kovel, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Oleg Borisov, Pavel Luspekayev, Sergei Yursky, and many other remarkable Russian actors. Basilashvili's most memorable stage works were in the play Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, Kholstomer based on the eponymous story of Leo Tolstoy, The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky, and other classic plays directed by Georgi Tovstonogov at the BDT in St. Petersburg.