Urmas Ilmarovich Ott is an Estonian journalist, TV presenter, star of Soviet and Estonian television. His projects have received recognition not only in our country, but also abroad. He was awarded the highest awards of Estonian television in the field of journalism and the development of national culture, the prize of the Union of Journalists of the USSR for the TV acquaintance program.
Ott's programs about the lives of stars were very popular during the perestroika period and appeared on Soviet and Estonian television. In a relaxed atmosphere and on an equal footing, he talked with famous pop performers, writers, creative intelligentsia. His broadcasting style was called provocative, and many famous people refused to come to him on the air. He was able to put anyone in an uncomfortable position and turn the conversation so that the cited facts of the biography of the stars began to turn against them. He knew the secrets of many of his interlocutors, and his life remained unknown to anyone.
Biography of Urmas Ott
Urmas was born in 1955, on April 23, in Estonia, in the small town of Otepää, where all his family lived. His mother was engaged in raising him. The father passed away when the boy was still very young. In the arms of his mother, he and his younger sister remained.
The boy was no different from his peers. He went to kindergarten early, then to school. After joining the pioneers, he began to actively participate in all school activities.
Urmas always wanted to be a leader and first in everything. In the lower grades, he stood out for his desire to collect as much waste paper, scrap metal, to take first place in sports competitions and pioneer shows. A surprise for all his friends and teachers was that in high school, carried away by the Beatles, the boy grew long hair, tried to learn to play the guitar, began to skip lessons, and eventually completely forgot about school.
Urmas received his certificate with great difficulty, but after graduating from school he still managed to enter the Pedagogical University of Tallinn, where he received higher education. In addition, Urmas went to study at the courses of television journalists, where his teacher repeatedly told the young man that if he became more serious about his future profession, then he could turn out to be a good journalist.
Immediately after graduating from university and courses, Urmas goes to the army, where he becomes a soloist of the ensemble, and then the host of concerts. His creative biography began with these performances.
Career and creativity
After the service, Urmas gets on television, where he becomes the announcer of a news program. His career is rapidly moving up. After a while, he begins to broadcast "Azbuka Variety" and at the same time to work on a new TV broadcast format, creates the "Television Acquaintance" program, after which Urmas becomes one of the most popular TV presenters and journalists in Estonia. Although he himself said that nothing like this existed in his biography, that he was an ordinary modest presenter, and everything else is just a myth and a story invented by someone.
After a while, Urmas with his program was invited to Moscow on Central Television. The leadership was sure that the image of an intelligent, educated, handsome young man with a charming smile and sharp tongue would certainly be accepted by the audience and soon he would become a popular TV presenter not only in his homeland, but also in the USSR. Thus began Urmas's work on Central Television.
The filming of the program took place in Estonia and not all of its releases were allowed to be shown in the USSR, where at that time there was strict censorship.
Urmas invited the popular actress Lyudmila Gurchenko to one of his programs. The interview with the star turned out to be very unexpected and contained a lot of information that could only be read in the yellow press. They began to talk about the TV presenter as a person who, on the basis of scandals and intrigues, was able to make a unique TV show format, which had never been on the screens before. He allowed himself to ask the famous actress about secret admirers, her romances with famous musicians and even about the involvement and mafia structures of her husband, Joseph Kobzon.
A few months later, the popularity of the TV presenter and his scandalous program became so high that viewers and colleagues did not miss a single episode. Urmas created a new image of the presenter on the screen, the purpose of which was to introduce the viewer to the Western manner of conducting programs and the European style. He constantly wrote new scripts, came up with new questions and made his own rating of celebrities whom he wanted to see as his interlocutors in a television project.
Gradually, Ott began to invite only those to whom he himself felt sympathy, believing that only in this way he could feel free and uninhibited on the program and ask any questions. Only the most successful and famous people got on his program. Perhaps it was this criterion that allowed Urmas to gain fame and love of the public, to draw attention to his work for a long time.
The provocative format of the program and the "inconvenient" questions for some celebrities scared many away from participating in his project. It is said that some of the leading politicians and members of the elite were simply afraid of him. But those who took part in his programs remembered the joint work with warmth and gratitude.
Urmas was loved by friends and colleagues, he was the center of the company and could charm anyone with his talent for conducting a conversation, relaxedness and some insolence that had been present in him since his youth. Many believed that Ott had many friends, but in fact he was very lonely and devoted his whole life to television, which became his only friend, completely replaced his family.
The popular program went on television for many years, but in 1993 it was closed, and Urmas left for Estonia, where he continued his creative activity. He released a series of programs in which he met and talked with Estonian cultural and art workers. But soon they closed it too.
Urmas had a hard time enduring the events and in 1998 he had a heart attack. A year later, unknown assailants attacked Ott and inflicted many stab wounds on him. Until now, no one knows whether it was an order or an accident.
After recovering his health, Urmas again comes to the capital of Russia and becomes the host of the program "Urmas Ott s …". It was also based on meetings with famous people, but the shooting took place in the popular metropolitan restaurant "Prague". Urmas believed that thanks to a relaxed atmosphere and a few glasses of wine, a person becomes more talkative and answers even "uncomfortable" questions.
Ott's new project lasted less than a year. The reasons were unknown, but Urmas himself assumed that someone from the management of the TV channel did not like him, and his questions to his interlocutors and their answers were too frank.
Over the next few years, Urmas led several more projects on television, but they did not achieve such overwhelming success as "Television Dating".
Personal life of a TV journalist
The famous journalist did not like to talk about himself. He tried not to give any interviews to the press, believing that the information received by journalists about him and his life, as a result, is completely distorted, and the work he is engaged in is interesting only to himself. The reason could also be that Urmas did not know Russian well and spoke with an accent, so his interviews were not always well received by ear and the meaning of some phrases could be misinterpreted by interviewers.
Ott preferred loneliness and tried not to tell anyone about his state of mind. The only love of his life is television.
Urmas never had a family and children. He said that he was not ready to raise a child and enter into a serious relationship, but he was satisfied with his life and completely happy.
The last years and the death of Urmas Ott
For the past two years, Urmas has been struggling with leukemia. He did not tell anyone about his illness, as well as about his personal life. Only after chemotherapy did it become difficult to hide the disease. He could no longer appear on screens and completely switched to work for a radio station in Tallinn.
In 2008, Urmas was admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery. The only friend who visited him in recent days was his colleague Voldemar Lindström.
Urmas passed away on October 17, 2008, when he suffered another heart attack. His funeral was attended by two beloved women - mother and sister, they did not invite anyone else to the farewell ceremony.
