Vasili Merkuryev


Vasili Vasilyevich Merkuryev was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor, theater director and pedagogue. People's Artist of the USSR. Stanislavsky State Prize of the RSFSR.

Biography

Vasili Merkuryev was born into a mixed Russian-German family. His father Vasily Ilyich Merkuryev was a Russian laborer turned merchant. He ran a successful business selling tar and fish. His mother Anna Ivanovna Grossen was of German descent. She emigrated from Switzerland along with her brother Heinrich. Vasili was the fourth of their six sons.
He was raised in his native town of Ostrov and became an actor of the local theater at the age of 16. In 1921 he moved to Petrograd and entered the Saint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy which he finished in 1926. He later returned to the academy to work as a teacher and became a professor in 1961. Between 1926 and 1937 Merkuryev had worked in five different drama theaters, all based in Leningrad. In 1937 he entered the Alexandrinsky Theatre where he served till his death, both as an actor and stage director.
He is mostly remembered for his comedy roles in movies such as True Friends, Heavenly Slug and Cinderella. He also played one of the main parts in the war drama The Cranes Are Flying directed by Mikhail Kalatozov that won the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
He continued his theater and movie career when the war started. During the evacuation he served as a director of the Narym Theater, as well as a director of the Novosibirsk Youth Theatre in 1944-1945.
Merkuryev died on 12 May 1978 in Leningrad. He was buried in the Volkovo Cemetery.

Family

Vasili Merkuryev was married to Irina Meyerhold, daughter of the acclaimed Russian/Soviet stage director Vsevolod Meyerhold, also of German descent. Together they had two daughters and one son Pyotr Merkuryev, who also became a prominent Soviet/Russian actor and musicologist.
Merkuryev had five brothers, each of them lived a very different and tragic life.
During the war Vasili Merkuryev also adopted two children who had lost their parents. They had lived with him up till 1947 when their mother was found. By that time Merkuryev's family consisted of 14 people.

Filmography

Girl Friends – PostmanThe Return of Maxim – Student-MenshevikThe Defense of Volotchayevsk – Drunk dockerKomsomolsk – Construction military representativeProfessor Mamlock – KrauseMember of the Government – StashkovTanker "Derbent" – Aleksei Petrovich Dogailo, boatswainHeavenly Slug – Senior lieutenant Semyon TuchaThe Great Glinka – Yakob Ulyanych Ulanov – Stalin Prize second degree The Vow – General Nikolay VoronovCinderella – ForesterTale of a True Man – Stepan Ivanovich, starshina – Stalin Prize second degree The Star – Anikanov, starshinaThe Battle of Stalingrad – General Nikolay VoronovThe Miners of Donetsk – Sidor Trofimovich Gorovoy, mine manager – Stalin Prize second degree The Unforgettable Year 1919 – BryzgalovThe Encounter of a Lifetime – Vasily NikanorovichJambyl – DoctorA Comrade's Honour – Starshina PrivalovWorld Champion – Fyodor Ivanovich Bessonov, wrestling coachTrue Friends – Vasily Vasilyevich Nestratov, architecture academicianDid We Meet Somewhere Before – Anatoly Verkhoturov, theater directorTwelfth Night – MalvolioBehind the Footlights – Lev Gurych Sinichkin, actorThe Cranes Are Flying – Fyodor IvanovichPeople on the Bridge – Ivan Denisovich BulyginChronicle of Flaming Years – Bogdanovsky, surgeonSleepless Night – SnegiryovSplendid Days – Uncle KostyaCherry Town – Fyodor Mikhailovich DrebednyovWhistle Stop – Pavel Pavlovich, academicianRoll Call – General Viktor Ilyich ZhuravlyovA Nest of Gentry – Sergei Petrovich GedeonovskyThe Seven Brides of Lance-Corporal Zbruyev – Vasily Vasilyevich LukyanovFarewell to St. Petersburg – LeybrokMoscow-Cassiopeia – Nikolai Kirillovich BlagovidovKsenia, Fedor's Beloved Wife – Personnel department manager