“I am a humble person, despite my decency.” We recall the famous actor.
Evgeny Morgunov is a famous Soviet actor with a difficult fate. In his biography,https://www.pinterest.com/pin/705728204088802158/ there were years of creative lack of demand and years of glory, a serious illness, and personal tragedy.
Evgeny Aleksandrovich Morgunov was born on April 27, 1927, in Moscow. He was not even one year old when his father left the family. The boy grew up with his mother, an ordinary woman who worked as a nurse in a hospital.
From the age of 14, Eugene worked at a defense plant on a par with adults. Already at this age, he knew exactly what he wanted - to become an actor. In rare free hours, he studied in the drama club at the Palace of Culture, went to the theater and conservatory.
At 16, Eugene decides to quit the factory in order to go to his dream, but the director does not let him go. Morgunov is not lost and writes to Stalin himself a naive letter that begins with the words: “Take me into art ...” It is incredible, but soon a letter signed by Stalin arrives in the name of the director of the enterprise, in which he was ordered to send Eugene to the school at the Tairov Theater. From this begins the creative path of the actor.
Theatre. Cinema
A year later, the young man is transferred to VGIK to the course of director Sergei Gerasimov. He studies with such subsequently famous actors as Nonna Mordyukova, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Klara Luchko, Sergey Bondarchuk.
The first notable film work was for Eugene the role of the traitor Stakhovich in the film directed by Gerasimov “Young Guard”, in which he starred while still a student. The bright, charismatic Morgunov made a strong impression on the viewer. It seems to me that his career take-off could begin even then if his character turned out to be positive.
Over the next 10 years, he starred in episodic roles, works in the Theater Studio of the film actor.
As often happens in the acting environment, a case intervened in the life of Eugene ...
In 1961, the director Leonid Gaidai was going to shoot the short comedy “Dog-Barbos and the unusual cross”. Actors for the role of Coward and Dunce (G. Vitsin and Yu. Nikulin) were found immediately, and for the role of the third character - Experienced, they could not pick up the actor.
Mosfilm director Ivan Pyryev, who accidentally met Morgunov in the filming pavilion, immediately saw “Experienced” in him. He called the studio and ordered to stop the search, personally approving the role of Eugene. And he wasn’t mistaken: by that time, the actor who had grown stout and bald-headed fit perfectly into the image.
After the film was released, fame fell on Morgunov. On this wave, several more films with the participation of the stellar “trinity” were shot: “Moonshiners”, “Operation“ Y ”and other adventures of Shurik. But on the set of “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” Eugene had a big argument with Gaidai: the actor invited several of his fans to the set, although he knew very well that the director did not tolerate strangers on the set. When Gaidai demanded that they be withdrawn, Morgunov rudely refused to comply. The conflict went so far that the picture was captured with an understudy, already without Morgunov.
Subsequently, he played many more secondary roles with different directors, but in the memory of the Soviet generation, he remained exactly Experienced. In 1978, Morgunov received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
During the years of perestroika, the actor traveled around the country with concerts and his family, contrary to the statements of the yellow press, did not live in poverty. But this was very difficult for him: the diabetes mellitus, from which the actor had suffered from his youth, caused serious complications in almost every organ of his body. Even ordinary walking became painful ...
Personal life
The first common-law wife of E. Morgunov was the Bolshoi Ballerina Varvara Ryabtseva, who was 13 years older than him. They lived together for 10 years and broke up as friends, continuing friendly communication even when Eugene entered into a new official marriage.
With his second and last wife, Natalia, Morgunov met in 1963, and after 2 years they got married (now Eugene was 13 years older than his chosen one). Two sons were born in the marriage - Anton, and Nikolai.
Recent years and the tragedy that happened to his son
In the last years of his life, the actor was seriously ill, 2-3 times a year in the hospital. With his disease - diabetes, it was necessary to adhere to a strict diet, but Morgunov did not observe it. He suffered 2 heart attacks and a stroke, but as soon as he got to his feet, he returned to work.
In the spring of 1998, misfortune happened - his youngest son, Nikolai, who was only 26 years old, died in a car accident. This tragedy finally undermined the actor’s health and a year later he died of a 2nd stroke in the Moscow Clinical Hospital in the 73rd year of his life. Eugene Alexandrovich was buried at Kuntsevsky's cemetery next to his son.