Vasili Merkuryev

Vasili Merkuryev
Vasili Vasilyevich Merkuryev (6 April 1904 – 12 May 1978) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor, theater director and pedagogue. People's Artist of the USSR (1960).
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 (1954), Heavenly Slug (1945) and Cinderella (1947). 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 (1942-1944), 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 (Anna and Ekaterina) and one son Pyotr Merkuryev (1943—2010), who also became a prominent Soviet/Russian actor and musicologist.
Merkuryev had five brothers, each of them lived a very different and tragic life.
Leonid (1896—1915) was killed during World War I.
Aleksandr (1898—1942) lived in Leningrad and starved to death during the Leningrad Blockade.
Yevgeny (1900) was a Russian composer and conductor who left Russia after the October Revolution with his German uncle and was never heard from ever again.
Pyotr (1906—1940) was arrested in 1939 during the Stalinist repressions and died in prison. His children Vitaly, Yevgeny and Natalia - were adopted by Vasili. He also named his own son in the memory of his brother. Yevgeny Merkuryev (1936—2007) became a famous Soviet/Russian actor as well.
Vladimir died at the age of 9.
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 (1936) – Postman
The Return of Maxim (1937) – Student-Menshevik
The Defense of Volotchayevsk (1937) – Drunk docker
Komsomolsk (1938) – Construction military representative
Professor Mamlock (1938) – Krause
Member of the Government (1939) – Stashkov
Tanker "Derbent" (1941) – Aleksei Petrovich Dogailo, boatswain
Heavenly Slug (1945) – Senior lieutenant Semyon Tucha
The Great Glinka (1946) – Yakob Ulyanych Ulanov
The Vow (1946) – General Nikolay Voronov
Cinderella (1947) – Forester
Tale of a True Man (1948) – Stepan Ivanovich, starshina
The Star (1949) – Anikanov, starshina
The Battle of Stalingrad (1949) – General Nikolay Voronov
The Miners of Donetsk (1950) – Sidor Trofimovich Gorovoy, mine manager
The Unforgettable Year 1919 (1951) – Bryzgalov
The Encounter of a Lifetime (1952) – Vasily Nikanorovich
Jambyl (1952) – Doctor
A Comrade's Honour (1953) – Starshina Privalov
World Champion (1954) – Fyodor Ivanovich Bessonov, wrestling coach
True Friends (1954) – Vasily Vasilyevich Nestratov, architecture academician
Did We Meet Somewhere Before (1954) – Anatoly Verkhoturov, theater director
Twelfth Night (1955) – Malvolio
Behind the Footlights (1956) – Lev Gurych Sinichkin, actor
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Fyodor Ivanovich
People on the Bridge (1959) – Ivan Denisovich Bulygin
Chronicle of Flaming Years (1960) – Bogdanovsky, surgeon
Sleepless Night (1960) – Snegiryov
Splendid Days (1960) – Uncle Kostya
Cherry Town (1962) – Fyodor Mikhailovich Drebednyov
Whistle Stop (1963) – Pavel Pavlovich, academician
Roll Call (1965) – General Viktor Ilyich Zhuravlyov
A Nest of Gentry (1969) – Sergei Petrovich Gedeonovsky
The Seven Brides of Lance-Corporal Zbruyev (1970) – Vasily Vasilyevich Lukyanov
Farewell to St. Petersburg (1971) – Leybrok
Moscow-Cassiopeia (1973) – Nikolai Kirillovich Blagovidov
Ksenia, Fedor's Beloved Wife (1974) – Personnel department manager
References
External links
Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Tome 16, ed. by Prokhorov A.M., Moscow, 1974
At First I Was a Kid: A Book about the Parents by Pyotr Merkuryev-Meyerhold, Moscow, 2001 (autobiography)
Merkuryev, Meyerhold's Grandson a Top Secret interview (in Russian)
More Than Love by Russia-K (in Russian)
1904 births
1978 deaths
20th-century Russian male actors
People from Ostrov, Pskov Oblast
People from Ostrovsky Uyezd
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Russian State Institute of Performing Arts alumni
Honored Artists of the RSFSR
People's Artists of the RSFSR
People's Artists of the USSR
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Recipients of the Stalin Prize
Russian people of German descent
Russian drama teachers
Russian male film actors
Russian male stage actors
Russian theatre directors
Soviet drama teachers
Soviet male film actors
Soviet male stage actors
Soviet theatre directors