Oleg Basilashvili


Oleg Valerianovich Basilashvili is a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor. He was awarded People's Artist of the USSR in 1984.

Biography

Childhood

He was born to a family of mixed Russian, Polish, and Georgian origin. He is half Russian.
Oleg Valerianovich Basilashvili was born on 26 September 1934 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. 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 World War II, young Oleg Basilashvili was evacuated from Moscow to the Transcaucasian republic of Georgia. There he went to a primary school and lived with his paternal grandfather until the end of World War II.

Acting career

In 1956, Oleg Basilashvili graduated from the Acting School of the Moscow Art Theatre, where he had studied under Pavel Massalsky. His group had many actors who would achieve fame in the future: among his fellows were Yevgeny Yevstigneyev, Mikhail Kozakov and Tatiana Doronina, his first wife. Together with Doronina, Basilashvili joined the troupe at the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Leningrad under the leadership of the legendary director Georgy 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, Tatiana Doronina, Alisa Freindlich, Lyudmila Makarova, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Zinaida Sharko, Valentina Kovel, Innokenty 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 Tovstonogov.

Film career

Oleg Basilashvili shot to fame with his roles in films by director Eldar Ryazanov. They collaborated in such popular films as Office Romance, Station for Two, Promised Heaven, and Prediction, which became significant box-office hits.
One of his most well-known film roles is the protagonist of Georgiy Daneliya's Autumn Marathon. The film is a cross-genre comedy and melodrama with a bitter humor and satire of the Soviet life. Basilashvili plays a weak-willed man in his mid-life crisis, who is torn between two nice women, his wife and his mistress, and all three of them become entangled in the game of lies and personal demands, being at the same time strangled by the stagnant Soviet reality. The film became a Soviet classic, and premiered at the 1979 San Sebastián Film Festival.
In the 1980s he appeared in eccentric films by Karen Shakhnazarov. Those were Kurer , Gorod Zero , and Sny . Dreams, a wild comedy about Perestroika is especially remarkable: in it Basilashvili tried on several images, those of a noble count from the past, a pornographer and a rock star.
In 2001, Oleg Basilashvili starred in Karen Shakhnazarov's comedy Poisons or the World History of Poisoning. The actor performed both as pensioner Prokhorov and the Pope Alexander VI Borgia in it.
Among the actor's other works of the early 21st century one can mention the role of Prof. Fyodorov in the historical film The Romanovs: An Imperial Family and General Yepanchin in the TV series The Idiot directed by Vladimir Bortko after the famous novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Political career

During the 1990s he was a visible political figure in Russia, and was elected the representative of Leningrad in 1990. Eventually he became a member of the pro-democratic group of representatives in the Russian Parliament, and a supporter of such politicians as Anatoly Sobchak and the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin. He was a strong proponent of returning the original name to the city of Saint Petersburg. He quit politics after 2000, and focused on his acting career.
He condemned the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and signed a public letter condemning the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine in support of Ukraine.

Selected filmography

  • The Foundling as boy on the bike
  • The Bride as Andrey Andreevich
  • The Hot Soul as Strelnikov
  • The Garnet Bracelet as Vasily Lvovich
  • Conspiracy of Ambassadors as Robert Lockhart, head of the British mission
  • Older Sister as Oleg Medynsky
  • The Seventh Companion as arrested officer
  • The Living Corpse as Viktor Mikhailovich Karenin
  • Incredible Yehudiel Chlamyda as Kosterin
  • The Ballad of Bering and His Friends as Ivan Alekseevich Dolgorukov, Prince
  • The Return of Saint Luke as Yuri Konstantinovich Loskutov, engineer, antiques speculator
  • Eternal Call as Arnold Lakhnovsky
  • Day of Admittance on Personal Matters as Dyatlov
  • Did You Call the Doctor? as Pyotr Ivanovich, head physician of polyclinic No. 8
  • Take Aim as Boris Pash
  • Balloonist as Dmitry Timofeevich Ptashnikov
  • A Slave of Love as Savva Yakovlevich Yuzhakov, film producer
  • Always with me... as Vasily Antonovich Rubtsov
  • The Days of the Turbins as Vladimir Talberg
  • The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce as Jürgen Kreutzman
  • Funny People! as Fedor Akimovich, investigator
  • Office Romance as Yuri Grigorievich Samokhvalov, deputy director of a statistical institution
  • Colonel Chabert as Derville, lawyer
  • Robbery at the Midnight as "Chief"
  • There are no Special Signs as Nikolaev
  • Autumn Marathon as Andrey Buzykin
  • Say a Word for the Poor Hussar as count Merzlyaev
  • Station for Two as Platon Ryabinin
  • Together with Dunaevsky
  • And then Came Bumbo... as Ilya Mitrofanovich, father of Sashenka
  • Complicity in Murder as Thomas Hobson, Beth Tyson's wealthy lover
  • Confrontation as police colonel, criminal investigation officer, Vladislav Nikolaevich Kostenko
  • Uncle Vanya. Scenes From Village Life as Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky
  • Face to Face as Gadilin
  • Courier as writer Semyon Kuznetsov, Katya's father
  • End of the World Followed by Symposium as Stanley Barrett
  • The Great Game as Brenner
  • Zerograd as writer Vasily Chugunov
  • Chernov/Chernov as Vsevolod Yarmak
  • The Case as Kandid Kastorovich Tarelkin
  • Promised Heaven as Fedor Stepanovich Yelistratov, Fima’s brother
  • Ticket to the Red Theater, or Death of a Gravedigger as Police Lieutenant Colonel Kuznetsov
  • Prediction as writer Oleg Vladimirovich Goryunov
  • Dreams as Count Dmitry Prizorov
  • Heads and Tails as Professor Valentin Petrovich Savitsky
  • Judge ''in the Trap as Squizem
  • What the Dead Man Said as mafia chief
  • Gangster Petersburg 2 as Lawyer, Nikolai Stepanovich Prokhorenko, prosecutor of St. Petersburg
  • The Romanovs: An Imperial Family as professor Sergey Fedorov
  • Poisons or the World History of Poisoning as Prokhorov/Pope Alexander VI
  • Under the Roofs of a Big City as Dimov
  • Azazel as general Lavrenty Mizinov
  • The Idiot as general Ivan Yepanchin
  • Dear Masha Berezina as Gennady Norstein
  • The Master and Margarita as Woland
  • Leningradets as Nikolai Savitsky
  • Sonya with Golden Hands as Levit Sandanovich
  • Liquidation as esoteric Igor Semenovich
  • Don't Think About White Monkeys as one of the Authors
  • Marevo as Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub
  • Off the Hook as Mr. Vyshnevsky
  • Palm Sunday as Gennady Matveyevich Nikitin, Arthur's grandfather, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee
  • The New Adventures of Aladdin as Narrator
  • The Farmer as Pavel Ignatievich Sukhomlinov, owner
  • Without Borders as George
  • Didn't Expect'' as Innokenty Mikhailovich, musician

    Awards and honors

  • Order of the Red Banner of Labour
  • Order "For Merit to the Fatherland":
  • *2nd class
  • *3rd class - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic theatrical art and many years of fruitful activity
  • *4th class - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic theatrical art'
  • Order of Friendship - for services to the people associated with the development of Russian statehood, the achievements in labor, science, culture, arts, strengthening friendship and cooperation between nations
  • Honored Artist of the RSFSR
  • People's Artist of the RSFSR
  • People's Artist of the USSR
  • Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR - for his role as Samokhvalov in the movie Office Romance
  • Prize of the Government of St. Petersburg in the field of literature, art and architecture
  • Gold Soffit Award for Best Actor
  • Golden Mask Award for Best Actor - the role of Prince K. in the play "Uncle's Dream"
  • International Theatre Prize in 2009 in the category "for his contribution to Russian theatre"
  • Honorary Member of Russian Academy of Arts
  • Presidential Order of Excellence
  • Order of Honour