Aleksei Kapler


Aleksei Yakovlevich Kapler was a prominent Soviet filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and writer. He was known as screenwriter of many Soviet movies, such as Lenin in 1918, Amphibian Man, The Blue Bird and Striped Trip, as well as one of the anchors and directors of TV program Kinopanorama.

Early life

Kapler was born into a wealthy family of Jewish merchants in Kiev in 1903, the son of Yakov Naftalievich Kapler and Raisa Zakhar'yevna Kapler. As an adolescent, he participated in local theater productions. In particular, he participated in a puppet theater, along with Sergei Yutkevich, Grigori Kozintsev, Michał Waszyński, and Konstantin Mardzhanov.
He and his colleagues eventually moved to Leningrad. There, Kapler appeared in several films directed by Kozintsev. In the 1930s, Kapler was a scriptwriter for a series of films about the life of Vladimir Lenin, which were directed by Mikhail Romm. For this, he became a recipient of the Stalin Prize in 1941.

Internments in the Gulag

Kapler is also known as the first love of Joseph Stalin's then teenage daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, who was more than 20 years his junior. According to Stalin's daughter, that was the reason for Kapler to be sentenced in 1943 to five years in exile on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. He was sent to Vorkuta region, where he worked as a photographer and lived in a tiny room partitioned off in the corner of the local photo studio.
In 1948, after returning to Moscow without permission, he was imprisoned the second time and spent five more years in Minlag labour camp by Inta. In 1953, after Stalin's death, he was released and exonerated of all charges in 1954. After the release, Kapler continued working on cinema and TV.

Personal life

His first wife was the actress Tatiana Tarnowska, daughter of Countess Maria Tarnowska. With Tatiana he had a son, Anatoly. His second wife was actress Valentina Tokarskaya whom he met in exile. After his remarriage, he had another affair with Svetlana Alliluyeva. Kapler's last wife was poet Yulia Drunina.

Filmography