April 25, 1928
Born Yury Yakovlev — one of the country's most beloved actors. A master of both drama and comedy—Prince Myshkin in "The Idiot," Lieutenant Rzhevsky in "The Hussar Ballad," and Ippolit in "The Irony of Fate."
I chose a profession where real life often merges so much with the thoughts and actions of the characters that they become almost independent, even partially influencing me.
His father was a lawyer, his mother a nurse. They separated when Yura was four; their personalities proved too different. But they never lost touch and never started new families. During the war, they were evacuated from the capital to Ufa. There, Yura helped his mother in a military hospital, washing "endless kilometers of dirty bandages."
After the war, he prepared to attend MGIMO, studying languages, philosophy, and the history of diplomacy. Instead, he applied to VGIK. They didn't accept him; the audition deemed him "unfilmable." It was a severe blow to his ego. At the Shchukin Theatre Institute, he also found himself on the brink of failure—according to the commission, he didn't nail the role of the predator in the fable "The Lamb and the Wolf." This sealed Yakovlev's fate. Cecilia Mansurova:
"How could I not take him? Look at his eyes!"
In 1952, after graduating from college, he joined the Vakhtangov Theater. He stayed there for the rest of his life. A year later, he made his film debut—an Albanian film ("The Great Warrior of Albania, Skanderbeg").
Fame came in 1958, after "The Idiot" Ivan PyreevThe director had been mulling over the idea of a film adaptation for many years—until he saw Yakovlev auditioning for Chukhraev's "The Forty-First":
"Days passed, and the young actor I'd seen still stood before me. Suddenly, I realized that in my mind's eye, he resembled Prince Myshkin. Those same eyes—deep, intelligent, kind."
On set, he treated Yakovlev with care. Only once did he persuade Nikita Podgorny (Ganya) to give him a real slap, to bring tears to his eyes: "Oh, how ashamed you'll be of what you did!"
In total, Yakovlev appeared in over 70 films—directed by Gaidai, Ryazanov, Daneliya, Lioznova, and others. He played over 150 roles in theater and film. He wrote two memoirs. He passed away in 2013.
