11 June 1982
He died in Moscow at the age of 47. Anatoly Solonitsyn — an actor, one of the main characters in Tarkovsky’s films.
People just need to be reminded more often that they are people.
He started performing on stage while still in school. After 11th grade, he tried several times to get into GITIS, but was unsuccessful. He went to work uprooting tree stumps in the Ivanovo region, where he had to bathe in swamp water, which led to his early baldness. Stooped and balding, he was a student no one wanted to enroll in acting programs.
After his third failure, he enrolled in the theater studio at the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater. He lived modestly in a dorm with his brother.
Widespread fame came at 32, after the role of an icon painter Andrei Rublev In Tarkovsky's film. He sought out the director himself when he came to Moscow to star.
He made a strange impression. Dressed in a black coat, he was laconic, modest, but firm in his speech. Tarkovsky shrugged and said, "Let's do a screen test, since the man has come all the way from the Urals." He saw a kind of monastic self-absorption in this face, new to cinema. (from the memoirs of brother Alexei)
Solonitsyn quit his job at the theater to film the movie. To make his voice sound hoarse—the film includes a scene where he breaks his vow of silence—he bandaged his throat and remained silent for a week.
After Rublev, Tarkovsky invited Solonitsyn to the set of all his films.
In 1972 he played Doctor Sartorius in his "Solaris", and in 1979 he played a writer in "Stalker".
He also starred in films by other directors: “To Love a Man,” “One of Our Own Among Strangers, a Stranger Among Our Own,” and “Men!”
A year before his death, he played the leading role in Twenty-six Days in the Life of Dostoevsky, and received a prize at the Berlin Film Festival for it.
If I play Dostoevsky, why should I play anything else?
While filming "Great Destiny," he fell from a horse and severely bruised his chest. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent surgery, but the diagnosis was concealed. Under medical supervision, he managed to play a journalist in Vadim Abdrashitov's "The Train Stopped." The disease persisted, and the actor fell ill.
He died at home.
