Nikolai Vladimirovich Olyalin - Honored and People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR, laureate of the Komsomol Prize of Ukraine, holder of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, V degree, screenwriter and film director.
Nikolay Vladimir Olyalin is an actor of rare talent and appearance. Anyone who has ever seen him on the screen in such films as "Liberation" or "No Way Back" is unlikely to forget.
The childhood of Nikolai Olyalin
On the Google map, you can still find a point with several buildings in the Vologda region, designated Opikhalino. This is the birthplace of the famous actor. He was born here on May 22, 1941, exactly one month before the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union.
This fact seemed to have predetermined that the role of the military would become the main hypostasis in his acting life. As a child, he saw crippled soldiers who were returning home after the Great Patriotic War. Their men's tears were imprinted in childhood memory, when they, softening from what they had drunk, recalled the dead fellow soldiers and the horrors that they had to go through. The boy was surprised by the crying adult uncles. As he got older, he realized the reason for the tears of those big men without arms or legs. These impressions later helped the actor create such authentic images of the cinematic military that many front-line soldiers recognized him as a fellow soldier. So, having not been to the war due to his infancy, he was involved in it from childhood.
The Finnish war also affected him, which made his father disabled: Vladimir Olyalin was wounded in the stomach, and his intestines fell out. The comrades boiled the melted snow in a basin, washed the insides and put it back into the peritoneum. His father was a tailor by profession and, according to the recollections of the children, he worked for days without straightening his back to feed his family.
Theater education and work in the Krasnoyarsk Youth Theater
Vladimir Olyalin wanted his sons to become soldiers. When the time came, he sent the youngest of the three, Kolya, to receive an education at a military topographic school in Leningrad. But by that time Nikolai had already been studying in Vologda in an amateur circle for several years and was seriously carried away by the stage. Therefore, instead of a military school, he went to take exams at the Leningrad State Theater Institute and entered, defeating a competition of 126 people for a place.
After graduation, he went to work at the Krasnoyarsk Theater for Young Spectators (1964-1969). He did not have a great artistic career there because of the hostility of the theater management. The director was offended by the satirical rhyme that the artist wrote to him. Olyalin not only did not receive title roles in the theater, but the management also hid invitations from him to audition for filming in feature films.
Film career of Nikolai Olyalin
And yet he managed to act in films. The debut of the actor Olyalin was the role of a young lieutenant, fighter pilot Nikolai Boldyrev in the film "Flight Days" (1966). To some extent, the father's dream came true to see his son in military uniform. In this picture, from the mouth of the hero Olyalin, for the first time, the phrase "Let's live!" Was heard, which Leonid Bykov skillfully used in the cult film "Only old men go to battle".
This was followed by shooting in films that immediately after the release brought fame and popular love to the bright actor: "Running", "There is no turning back", the epic "Liberation". The images of courageous heroes that Olyalin created in these films turned out to be, perhaps, the most poignant and memorable in his career. The grandson of the actor spoke about his grandfather like this: "My grandfather was the embodiment of a masculine character in the most powerful country in the world." This is exactly how Olyalin was perceived by the audience - as a collective image of a soldier of the war, which ended only 25 years ago.
More than once there were situations when the actor was mistaken for a real soldier. Once in Kiev, on Victory Day, a story happened, which Olyalin himself later told about: he was walking with his little son Volodya and then a front-line soldier ran up to him, began to shake the actor by the hands and claim that he was with him in the battles on the Kursk Bulge. Both moved men wept from surging feelings.
Those who knew Nikolai Olyalin said that the actor who played people with iron characters in life was a very vulnerable, sentimental, sympathetic and gentle person. Sometimes this led to unpleasant consequences: many wanted to drink with the famous actor and he almost got drunk. Realizing that addiction must be fought, he agreed to treatment. Nikolai Vladimirovich drank the last glass on December 2, 1973, when his daughter Olya was born, and never again touched alcohol in his life.
The famous actor also managed to save his family. Tall, stately, with expressive features and a beautiful, mesmerizing voice, he was wildly popular among women. But in the end, he didn't trade his Nelly for anyone.
Fame gave the actor the opportunity to change jobs. He was invited to Moscow, Minsk and Kiev. Nikolai Vladimirovich chose the Dovzhenko film studio and his family left the Krasnoyarsk Youth Theater, unfriendly for Olyalin.
The 70s of the last century were the most fruitful in the acting film career. He starred in almost two dozen films, mostly military-related. His manly appearance was perfect for creating images of war heroes. But Olyalin's powerful male charm and artistic skill were subject to roles of a different plan.
The power of the look of Nikolai Olyalin
In the lyric film "I'm Coming to You", Lesia Ukrainka (Alla Demidova) speaks about her loved one who died of tuberculosis, played by Olyalin:
The quote from the film fully applies both to the ascetic appearance of the northern type of male beauty, which Olyalin possessed, and to his acting ability to speak with one eyes, one facial expression. He belongs to a small galaxy of actors, such as Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who knew how to be silent in the frame so skillfully and so “speaking” that they could replace scenes with verbose dialogues.
In the film "Downpour" Olyalin did not utter a single word at all, playing a forester who was numb at the front. Communication with the outside world, the actor stunningly showed all the deep feelings through the expression of his eyes.
The actor's son recalled that Nikolai Vladimirovich said: “In love scenes you don't always need to kiss. Much more can be said with a glance …”.
Fragment from the film "No Way Back":
At the time of filming this film, Olyalin himself was about 29 years old.
Heart problems of Nikolai Olyalin
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, work in cinematography almost ceased. Olyalin wrote poetry, scripts, shot several lyric films. But he was late with such a theme - films with explicit bed scenes, horror pictures, fantasy with special effects, thrillers with a sea of blood poured into the post-Soviet space from the west. Moral values have given way to commercial ones.
And Olyalin dreamed of making a film about Ivan the Terrible and tried to found the Derevenka film studio in Vologda. Unfortunately, these plans were not implemented.
Nikolai Vladimirovich held the blows of fate with dignity, but his heart began to falter. He had to undergo two heart operations, one of which was coronary artery bypass grafting, which took place with the help of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, General Pyotr Deinekin. It turned out that the operation required a decent amount, which neither Olyalin himself nor his relatives had. One of the comrades, a businessman, responded to the forced numerous requests for help. He agreed to give the honored artist of Ukraine the necessary amount of debt at interest. When asked what to do if he dies during the operation, Olyalin received the answer that the money would be returned by the actor's family. Nikolai Vladimirovich, who even theoretically could not put the family in such a situation, refused the money.
When, finally, he called Deinekin, he immediately received an answer that money would be found for him. And there was silence in the receiver. Then someone on the other end of the line said in a whisper that Olyalin was crying.
Nikolai Vladimirovich lived for several more years and even starred in small roles in such films as "Night Watch", "Day Watch", "Boomer-2".
However, since 2007, due to deteriorating health, he was no longer able to act.
He said that all his life he gave himself to people, and now, when he is deprived of this, then, probably, he is deprived of his life.
Personal life of Nikolai Olyalin
Staying in Krasnoyarsk, despite the problems in the Youth Theater, still brought him great luck - love for life. For the first time, the future wife of the actor saw him at a poetry evening. Later they met at a festive concert to mark the day of the October Revolution. Nelly, as the second secretary of the Komsomol committee of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, was organizing the concert, and he read Mayakovsky's poems on it. In the third meeting, Olyalin saw the girl again at some New Year's event, went up to her, hugged and kissed her. Then they kissed all over the frosty Siberian night on warm porches, and a week later they signed. And they lived together until his death.
His wife created a cozy home and a reliable rear for him, gave birth to a son, Vladimir, and a daughter, Olga. Nelly Ivanovna became an honored teacher of Ukraine. The acting work did not captivate their children, and the grandson Sasha became an animator.
The actor said that once answering the question of his grandson: “Grandfather, I didn’t know that I was so famous. Why are you not in charge? ", He said that" our grandmother is the main one, and I am just Nikolai the pleaser."
Nikolai Vladimirovich Olyalin died on November 17, 2009 from a massive heart attack.
Relatives fulfilled the wish of their beloved husband and father not to put pompous monuments on his grave: “… I don’t need Paphos. I am a simple Orthodox person and I want an ordinary Orthodox cross. " On the gravestone of Olyalin at the Baikovo cemetery in Kiev, there is a black marble cross with a laconic inscription “Olyalin Nikolay Vladimirovich. 22. V.1941-19. XI.2009. Actor".
In memory of the actor Nikolai Vladimirovich Olyalin
Director Nikolay Mashchenko about Nikolay Olyalin:
Nikolai Olyalin's confessor, remembering him, spoke like this:.
In the film "No Way Back" there is such an episode: the comrades buried Major Toporkov in the forest, whose role was played by Olyalin, and Andreev (actor Alexei Chernov) says:
And one more snippet:
In December 2016, a memorial stele with the image of Nikolai Vladimirovich in high relief was erected in Vologda.
