On August 26, 1925 in Ukraine, the Kirovograd region (formerly Zinovievsky district of the Ukrainian SSR), Petr Todorovsky was born - a talented director, composer, actor, screenwriter and cameraman.
Todorovsky - representative of the military generation
Having survived the war years, like most representatives of the younger generation, with an infantry school, war and the front, Peter reached Elba, was wounded and sent to the rear. Numerous orders and awards eloquently speak of the military past. After the war, there was military service, mobilization and short work at a glass factory.
In 1949, Todorovsky entered the camera department of VGIK; during his five years of study, he shot several of his films, which, to this day, unfortunately, have not reached. Todorovsky began his film career with the work of the cameraman at the Odessa film studio (until 1962), so the painting “Moldavian Chants", shot in 1955, is fully considered his debut.
Capable of more
At a certain point, Pyotr Yefimovich realized that he was capable of doing more. Many peer directors helped to shoot their films (for example, “Two Fedor” and “Spring on Zarechnaya Street” by Marlena Khutsiev), in order to decide at one point to start making her own movie. In 1962, Todorovsky, who became a self-taught director, directed the film “Never”, which became immediately successful, working in it as an operator and co-director with V. Dyachenko.
But the film "Fidelity", released on the screens three years after, overshadowed all his previous successes. It was a memory film about Yuri Nikitin, an orphan, a bright man, brought up in an orphanage, and Peter's front-line friend. Killed by a sniper bullet, he embodied the young generation, mercilessly worn out by the war. For this work, Todorovsky received the prize of the Cannes Film Festival and a number of other prestigious awards. Years later, the director matured and wiser, deeply understanding the tragedy of his people, called this work “baby talk”; later films of the war cycle added more drama, bitterness and cruelty. Todorovsky, being self-taught in his field, always studied with more experienced comrades and gained creative courage, experience and knowledge from them; these are Bulat Okudzhava, Marlen Khutsiev, Grigory Pozhenyan, Alexander Volodin.
Then the viewer saw such films by Todorovsky Peter, the list of which is far from complete:
- City Romance
- "The Last Victim"
- "Magician",
- "Own land",
- "On the day of the holiday."
In several of them, Todorovsky co-wrote the script.
Favorite films made by Todorovsky
From 1967 to 1989, Pyotr Todorovsky, whose filmography is multi-genre and multi-faceted, made nine films: special ones, with soft humor, a little shaded by sadness, with restrained courageous drama and modest poetry. Todorovsky showed an extraordinary ability to work in different genres, creating a humane, vital, good movie - one that the viewer loves and understands so much. This is the lyrical comedy “Beloved Woman of the Mechanic Gavrilov”, the melodrama “The Last Victim”, the sad parable “The Magician”, the adventurous melodrama “Intergirl”, preserving the purity and mercy of the artistic look.
Cast in Todorovsky films
Such wonderful actors as Lyubov Polishchuk, Elena Yakovleva, Natalya Andreichenko, Nikolai Burlyaev played in Todorovsky’s films. The director himself tried to act in film; in the movie “It was the month of May,” he played one of the key roles.
In 1967, Petr Todorovsky received the title of Honored Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR for his significant contribution to the development of cinema, in 1989 he became the People's Artist of the RSFSR.
At the end of the century, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he directed such noteworthy tapes as “Anchor, another anchor”, “In the constellation of the Bull”, “What a wonderful game”, “Riorita”.
For his films Pyotr Todorovsky received high state awards. In December 2005, he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland, II Degree", which became the last award in the fate of the director.
Petr Todorovsky: personal life
The director was twice married. His first wife is Nadezhda Cherednichenko, from a marriage with which a daughter was born. The second wife of the World, who was a engineer-lieutenant in the Navy, gave birth to a son, Valery, who devoted his life, like his father, to cinema. In the process of living together, she began to write scripts for popular science films devoted to marine subjects. According to her works, 13 films were put. Later, Mira Todorovskaya created Mirabelle, her own independent studio, where some films of Pyotr Yefimovich were shot.
The Todorovsky house has always been hospitable; almost all directors and actors who came to the Odessa film studio, including Andrei Tarkovsky and Vladimir Vysotsky, passed through it.
The last years of his life Todorovsky more realizes himself as a screenwriter; practically does not shoot films, only occasionally tells novice directors. In May 2013, Peter Yefimovich suffered a heart attack, from which he could not recover. An outstanding director was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.