12 February 1916 year
Born Gottlieb Roninson. "A great actor of small roles", "the king of the comic episode with sad eyes".
— Are you a nobleman?
- Yes.
- Yes?
- No!
— Yes or no?
- I don’t know what you want...
(The 12 Chairs)
Was born in Vilnius, He was born into a Jewish family. His parents separated when he was very young, and he was raised by his mother. In the 1920s, they moved to Moscow, where his mother found work as a collector.
At 12, to keep his son occupied and off the streets, Gottlieb was enrolled in two clubs at once. Gosha (as he introduced himself) sang in a children's choir and studied acting in the mime ensemble at the Bolshoi Theater. He was destined for a career as a tenor, but after a teenage breakdown, his voice "deteriorated." Gosha focused on the theater.
While performing as a supporting actor at the Bolshoi Theater, Gosha managed to get Bulgakov's autograph. Mikhail Afanasyevich, then the literary director, had left the Moscow Art Theater because he was tired of Stanislavsky teaching him how to write plays. Bulgakov, seeing such a man so passionate and destined for art, signed some words for him on a photograph... Gosha played many roles beautifully... He was a magnificent bit actor!
(Yuri Lyubimov)
During the war, he wanted to go to the front, but was rejected because of his epilepsy. In Verkhneuralsk, where he and his mother were evacuated, he worked as a teacher at an orphanage. He organized solo concerts and donated the proceeds to the front.
He graduated from the Shchukin School in 1945. In 1946, he joined the Taganka Theatre, where he worked for the rest of his career.
At Taganka, where the Yuri Lyubimov Theater later moved in and became very famous, the Moscow Drama and Comedy Theater, directed by Plotnikov, staged plays. This theater was on the outskirts—the intelligentsia didn't indulge it because the neighborhood was scary and full of thieves. I don't know who went to that theater, but I was there once—to see the play "Fakir for an Hour." I don't remember anyone who played it, but I played the role of the stuttering elevator operator. His performance was simply hilariously funny! It was a stunning solo... That's why I remembered the name—Roninson.
(Eldar Ryazanov)
When Lyubimov became the Taganka Theatre's chief director in 1964, Roninson was one of the few who joined the new company. He played a variety of roles—male, female, tragic, and comic—some striking, yet occasionally. He had a distinctive lisp and a slight "stumbling" in his speech, which made him memorable.
"You won't deny, Detochkin, that I show you sensitivity and concern. Whenever one of your relatives falls ill or dies, I grant you leave at your own expense."
- You are an unusually sensitive leader.
— That's right. But you have a lot of relatives, Detochkin, and I have very few staff positions.
(Beware of the car)
He began acting in films in the 1950s, but became recognized in 1966, after the release of the tragicomedy Beware of the Car (he played Chief Detochkin). In total, he appeared in more than 30 films, including Gaidai in "12 Chairs" and "It Can't Be", Danelia in "Athos", Alova и Naumova in "Run", Ryazanov in "The Irony of Fate".
- Where am I, huh?
- In the same place as me...
— And where are you?
— At the airport. The weather on the way to Krasnoyarsk is bad for flying, and in the worst case scenario… in the worst case scenario, I'll celebrate New Year's in this seat.
— And in the best?
— Also in a chair. Only in the air.
(The Irony of Fate)
According to his colleagues, he was easy-going, sometimes capricious, and had the ability to heal others in some unimaginable way. Vysotsky dedicated the following lines to him:
If you are mentally ill
Or physically ill
You fell ill epochally
Or periodically -
Don't go to private sellers,
Don't pay them pennies
Go to Gosha, you poor thing,
Goshenka will cure you
His marriage didn't work out. His mother, to whom he was deeply attached, disapproved of his choices, and when she passed away, he decided he was too old for marriage. A few years before his death, he commissioned his own coffin and gravestone.
I brought all this stuff to our theater warehouse. They looked at me like I was crazy, but everyone understood why I did it. I'm a lonely man... so I took care of everything myself.
He died in 1991 after a stroke. He was buried next to his mother. His gravestone reads:
I loved equally passionately all people of different faiths
