Veniamin Smekhov

Veniamin Borisovich Smekhov is a Russian stage and film actor and director. He was the winner of the Petropol Award as well as the Tsarskoselsky Artistic Prize. He refused the title of People's Artist of Russia, which was offered to him on his 70th birthday.
Smekhov has long worked in the Moscow Taganka Theatre, where his roles included Woland in a stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. In film, he is best known for the role of Athos in a Russian version of D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers and its sequels. He also has written poetry, scripts and memoirs.

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Biography

Smekhov was born on 10 August 1940 in Moscow. His father, Boris Moiseyevich Smekhov, was a Belarusian professor and doctor of economics, and his mother, Maria Lyovna Schwartzburg was a doctor and head of her medical department in a Moscow clinic. Smekhov spent most of his early life in Moscow. He saw his father for the first time only after he returned in 1945 from serving in the Second World War. From 1947 to 1957, he was a student at School No. 235 on Pal'chikov Lane where he was a part of the Palace of Pioneers drama club. Rolan Bykov worked with the students.
In 1957, Smekhov attended the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute, the conservatory of the Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre, as well as Vladimir Etush’s class at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute, graduating in 1961. He worked for a year at the Kuybiyshev Drama Theatre. In 1962, he joined the Moscow Theatre of Drama and Comedy, later renamed as the Taganka Theatre in 1964 under the direction of Yuri Lyubimov.
In 1985, after Lyubimov was deprived of his Soviet citizenship following an interview with The Times in 1984, and Anatoly Efros replaced him, Smekhov left the theatre for Sovremennik Theatre, returning in 1987.
In 1967, he began working as a freelance television director at Gosteleradio SSSR, the main producer of literary-drama programs. His first work was the teleplay Mayakovsky's Day. It was based on his own script and aired as a part of the Poetic Theatre series. He began work in film in 1968. In 1990, Smekhov began directing theatre performances, operas and made-for-television films in Russia and abroad, and he taught acting for several years in American universities. Smekhov began acting in films in 1968, gaining popularity after playing the role of Athos in the made-for-television film D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers, filmed at the Odesa Film Studio in 1978. He also played Athos in three follow-up films. He has made around 20 solo audio books and a collection of audio book compilations.
In 2011, Smekhov returned to the Taganka Theatre as a guest actor and director. He reprised the role of Woland in Master and Margarita on two occasions. He performed in two poetic performances No Years, which he wrote and directed, and The Spine of the Flute. He has toured with evenings of poetry. Smekhov also makes poetic programs and documentary films for television. He is also the author of several books, including memoirs, poetry and prose.

Personal life

Smekhov shared his first marriage with Alla Smekhova, a radio editor. The couple had two daughters together, including Alika Smekhova, an actress and singer. In 1980, he married film and theatre historian and translator Galina Aksenova.

Filmography

Acting roles

1968 Two Comrades Served – Baron Krauze
1969 The Air of Sovnarkom – Petrovsky
1971 Twenty Years Later – Aramis
1976 Smoke and the Shorty – Smoke
1977 Middle of Life – Dennis
1979 D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers – Athos
1979 I Ask to Accuse Klava K. of My Death – Uncle Seva
1983 The Story of Voyages – Local Don Quixote
1984 Favorites of the Moon – episode
1986 Seven Cries in the Ocean – Baron Porto
1988 Puppy – Alexander, journalist for Komsomol'sky Truth
1990 Trap For the Single Man – Maksimen
1991 Fool – Benjamin Borever
1992 Key – Alexander Brown
1992 Musketeers Twenty Years Later – Athos
1993 The Secret of Queen Anne or Musketeers Thirty Years Later – Athos
1993 Breakfast with a View on El'brus – Sumarokov
2004 Middle Age, Or All Men Are bas... – Alexander, Sonia's Admirer
2007 The Captain's Children – Lev Goreyno
2008 Montecristo – Ilia Orlov
2008 The Magician Friend Is Flying In – Semen Semenovich
2009 The Return of The Musketeers, Or the Treasure of Cardinal Mazarini – Athos
2009 Proposed Circumstances – Georgiy Strunin, Director
2011 Furtseva – Peter Vladimirovich Boguslavsky
2011 Countertrig – Baron von Libenfel's, Olaf's Uncle
2012 The Toy Salesman – Ivan Polikarpovich, Professor
2013 Finding a Husband In the Big City – Alexander Gordeev, Lisa's Father
2014 Spiral – Yakob Arnol'dovich
2014 The Frog Princess – Kashcheev
2014 Bones – Vitaliy Borisovich Deykevich
2016 Mafia: The Game of Survival – Luka Sergeyevich
2020 Elsa's Land – Leonid

Television productions

1965 – The Room
1965 – Four Friends and the Magic Slippers
1969 – Khafiz
1971 – Twenty Years Later – Aramis
1972 – The Magician from Shiraz – Khafiz
1983 – Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves – Mustafa
1983 – Monsieur Lenoir, Who... – Victor Lenoir
1984 – The Life and Books of Alexander Green – Visitor, Til's, Bill, Read-Headed Young Man, Guard
1984 – Ten Jazz Scenes Based on Macbeth – Macbeth
2002 – Willy-Nilly Doctor – Sganarel'
2013 – Suicide – reader
2016 – Disturber of the Peace – Hussein Guslia

Director

1967 – Mayakovsky's Day
1971 – First Songs – Last Songs
1972 – Magician from Shiraz
1973 – Frederick Moro
1982 – Gentlemen from Congress
1985 – The Sorochinsky Market
2002 – Willy-Nilly Doctor
2013 – Movie Star Between the Hammer and Sickle
2013 – Vladimir Tendryakov. A Portrait in the Background of Time
2015 – The Last Poet of the Great War
2015 – Boris Zaborov. Searching For Lost Time
2016 – Archives. Film 1. Alexander Dovzhenko and Yulia Solntseva
2016 – ''Archives. Film 2. Elem Klimov and Larisa Shepit'ko''