Alexander Leonidovich Kaidanovsky, Soviet and Russian theater and film actor, director and screenwriter, is known all over the world for his leading role in Tarkovsky's masterpiece "Stalker". In his filmography, there are also many pictures that later entered the golden fund of Soviet cinema. He was called the genius actor Marcello Mastroianni, Rutger Hauer, Richard Gere and Robert De Niro. Complex, multifaceted, independent, despising hypocrisy and lies, Kaidanovsky never compromised, defending his innocence to the last.
Childhood and youth
The hometown of Alexander Kaidanovsky is Rostov-on-Don. The future great actor was born on July 23, 1946. Alexander's father was an engineer, his mother worked in a theater studio as a director of children's performances. During the war, Rostov was badly damaged, and in the ruins of the university library, which was located next to the house in which the Kaidanovskys lived, one could find a variety of books. Apparently, it was then that Alexander developed a passion for reading and an interest in art in general.
When Sasha turned 14, his parents divorced. Having received his secondary education, Sasha went to Dnepropetrovsk to study as an electric welder, but very soon changed his mind, came back and entered the Rostov School of Arts. After a loud scandal, he had to finish the course with another teacher. In 1965, Alexander moved to Moscow and entered the Moscow Art Theater, from where he soon left, disappointed, at the Shchukin School. By the way, the explosive character of Alexander, who did not recognize anyone's power over himself, was the cause of many troubles and problems that haunted the actor all his life. Once even he almost ended up in prison, but he was saved by the People's Artist of the USSR Mikhail Ulyanov.
Creative career
In 1969, Kaidanovsky graduated from the Shchukin School, and he was taken to the Vakhtangov Theater, from where he soon moved to the Moscow Art Theater and the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. In 1973, the actor was drafted into the army, and he served in the cavalry regiment at Mosfilm, where he was noticed by the young director Nikita Mikhalkov. The image of the White Guard in Mikhalkov's film "At home among strangers, a stranger among friends" turned out to be so successful that it brought Kaidanovsky all-Union fame, they began to recognize him on the street, and directors began to vying with each other to be invited to similar roles.
In 1979, Tarkovsky's film "Stalker" was released, in which Kaidanovsky brilliantly played the most difficult role of a guide to the Unknown, inspired by faith in an ideal world. This role became a landmark for the actor, and after that he was filmed only occasionally. As he himself said: “I cannot be anyone after Stalker. It's like playing the role of Christ and taking on the role of chief accountant. " Perhaps it is for this reason that Kaidanovsky decided to make films himself. After graduating from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in 1984, he directed his first film, A Simple Death. The film won a prize at the Spanish Film Festival. Then Kaidanovsky released two more films - "The Kerosene Man's Wife" and "The Guest".
In his last years, Kaidanovsky taught directing at the Shchukin School, lectured at the Higher Courses, in 1994 he was invited to the Cannes Film Festival as a member of the jury. In 1995 he began work on the film "Climbing to Erhard", but Alexander Leonidovich did not manage to finish it.
Personal life
Kaidanovsky enjoyed great success with women, but his relationship with them was complicated and confusing. The actor quickly fell in love, often with his partners on stage and in the cinema, but that romantic invented image with which he fell in love vanished without a trace in real life together, and Kaidanovsky lost interest in his beloved.
The first time Kaidanovsky got married in Rostov. His marriage to Irina Bychkova lasted nine years, the couple had a daughter, Daria. The famous actress Evgenia Simonova became his second wife, they lived together for five years, their daughter Zoya later also became an actress. The third wife of Kaidanovsky was Natalia Sudakova, a ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater, she gave birth to Alexander's son Andrey. A few days before his death, Kaidanovsky married his fourth and last lover Inga Pivars.
