November 18 1996 years
In Moscow, at the age of 80, Zinovy Gerdt, a theater and film actor, died.
Calm down, calm down! Everything is very bad.
Born in 1916 in the Vitebsk province to a Jewish family, his real name was Zalman Khrapinovich. He became interested in theater as a child and performed in school plays. His high school diploma stated: "Has an aptitude for dramatic acting."
At 16, he entered the Moscow Electrical Plant's vocational school, worked as an electrician at Metrostroy, and performed at the Working Youth Theater. It was there that they decided his real name sounded "frivolous and unpleasant." So he came up with a new one.
After the war began, he volunteered for the front. He fought in a sapper battalion. In February 1943, he was seriously wounded near Kharkov while clearing mines for Soviet tanks. A nurse saved him, dragging him to the medical battalion. Doctors performed 11 surgeries, but one of his legs has since become 8 cm shorter than the other and has become rigid.
I really want to live. So that I can see you (from a letter to my wife from the front)
After the war, he returned to the stage. Embarrassed by his limp, he decided to work in a puppet theater. However, even behind the screen, he captivated audiences with his acting talent and inimitable timbre. He could play several characters at once, both male and female, and easily changed his voice and intonation. He voiced 28 cartoons and over 50 films. He played 77 film roles, mostly bit parts. Among his most notable roles were Panikovsky in "The Golden Calf," Sharapov's neighbor in "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed," and the head doctor in "Intergirl."
Despite having a third-degree disability, he was able to act in two films at once and perform on stage in the evenings, traveling from one city to another.
A normal human life does not need grief, although we, living in this country, understand that without suffering a person cannot develop as an individual.
In the 90s, he hosted his own program, "Tea Club," on TV-6, which was filmed at the actor's dacha. Although he had cancer, he worked until his last days: as soon as filming ended, Gerdt was carried to bed.