People's Artist of the USSR Igor Leonidovich Kirillov - an announcer from God, whose voice was heard by all residents of the Soviet Union for about half a century
Igor was born in 1932 in Moscow. His father was a military man, his mother was a librarian. An intelligent family brought up in his son a love of art, and he decided to link his life with theater and cinema. True, he did not suspect that he would become an announcer on television, because he dreamed of becoming a director.
After school, Igor entered the VGIK for directing, then moved to the Shchepkin School and graduated from the acting department there. After college I went to work on television - it was very prestigious. Igor wanted to become a TV director, but when he heard about the announcer competition, he decided to try it - "for the sake of interest."
What was the surprise of everyone when yesterday's student of "Shchepka" won this competition! For Igor Leonidovich, this date - September 27, 1957 - became his second birthday. In two hours, director Sergei Zakharov taught the beginner the elementary skills of the presenter and released Kirillov on the air.
He still hardly remembers what happened next - he only remembers that his legs were very weak, and everything was as if in a fog. But the first broadcast was great.
TV announcer
Igor Kirillov held the position of the host of the Vremya program, the main news program of the Soviet Union, for more than thirty years. The leadership changed, decades replaced each other, and only Igor Kirillov, in his beautiful voice, invariably told the residents of the Soviet Union about the country's main news.
There were very strict rules on television, and for the slightest offense they could be temporarily removed from the air or fired. But Kirillov was always impeccable, and worked all the time with practically no comments.
He also remembers his last appearance on television - it was the New Year's Eve news release at the end of December 1989.
From 1968 to 1989, he was not only the head of the announcer department of Channel One, but also hosted many other programs: TV Viewer's Satellite, Telescope, Ex-libris, and Sight.
Igor Leonidovich's artistic abilities were useful to him in the TV show "Blue Light", which they hosted together with Anna Shilova. He was an entertainer at concerts, his voice voiced mourning ceremonies from the funerals of heads of state, as well as broadcast parades from Red Square. And very often he made a festive speech before the New Year on television.
The beginning of the new century did not make Kirillov unemployed: he starred in films, taught at the Institute for Advanced Training of Radio and Television Employees and continued to work on television, appearing in many television programs.
Personal life
Igor met his future wife when he was 11 years old. He took care of Irina, with whom he studied at the same school, protecting her from hooligans. So childhood friendship grew into love, and then Igor and Irina got married. They had children: son Vsevolod and daughter Anna.
The parents did not communicate with their son, because he married against their will. In 2011, Vsevolod died in Africa, leaving his parents a grandson and three granddaughters, whom Igor Leonidovich met only after the death of his son.
Daughter Anna went to live and work in Germany, so Igor Leonidovich does not often see her.
In 2004, the wife of Igor Leonidovich died, he was very worried and did not know how to fill the void that had formed. And then he met Tatiana - a woman 34 years younger than himself. However, they are together very well.
In 2018, Igor Leonidovich received a high award for his work - the Order of Honor.
