Leonid Vladimirovich Kharitonov

Career

Training In early life he was ambivalent about an acting career. Although he took part in amateur productions, and in the ninth grade applied to theatre school, he nevertheless chose to study law for a year at university, while continuing theatrical performance in his spare time. "In the play The Inspector, he rocked the entire city of Leningrad; he played Bobchinsky and it was after this role that he again seriously considered an acting career." That summer, the Moscow Art School toured in Leningrad and offered auditions at his school. Kharitonov secretly attended, and was accepted.

Overview of acting career He graduated from the Nemirovich-Danchenko studio school at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1954. This was the Gorky Art Academic Theatre. After graduating from the studio school he continued working as an actor at the same theatre. He was an actor with the Academic Art Theatre in the name of M. Gorky, or Gorky Theatre, from 1954 to 1962, but then he left this theatre and in 1962–1963 he performed with the Theatre of Lenin Komsomol and with the Pushkin Theatre. But in 1963 he returned to the Gorky Art Academic Theatre. He was a film actor from 1954: his first role was Boris Gorikov in the movie School of Courage, while he was still an acting student. Private Ivan was followed in 1958 by Ivan Brovkin on the State Farm (see critical commentary below).

Theatrical performances

The following is a selection of Kharitonov's theatrical roles: The road through the Sokolniki (1958) – Aleshka Vronsky – image Three Fat Men (1961) – Dr. GasparMutiny (1977) – CaravanSo we will win! (1981) – FistWe, the undersigned – ExplorerThe Village Stepanchikovo – Evgraf EzhevikinPeace to the huts, war to the palacesDays of the Turbins – LariosikGoodbye, boys – Sasha KriegerDead Souls – ChichikovHouse number 6As he left, look – Fedor He played Fedul VI in Fire, Water, and Brass Pipes (1968). He played the part of Dobchinsky in the comedy Incognito from St. Petersburg (1977). In 1979 he acted in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, and A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov. In Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears he appears in cameo as himself, as part of the setting for the character Rudolf (Yuri Vasilyev) who is a television cameraman and first lover of the protagonist Ekaterina (Vera Alentova). Kharitonov was at that time ubiquitous on Soviet television, and therefore represented the contemporary celebrity media zeitgeist. This cameo part is not unimportant, as director Vladimir Menshov said: "The uniqueness of the movie Moscow does not believe in tears lies in the fact that there are no bit parts."

He played the Tsar in Along Unknown Paths(1982). He acted in: Iz Zhizni Nachalnika Ugolovnogo Rozyska (1983); Auktsion (1983); Postoronnim Vkhod Razreshyon (1986); Khorosho Sidim! (1986).

Full filmography Poster showing Leonid Kharitonov in Ivan Brovkin na tseline (1958). The poster provides identification of Leonid Kharitonov, while no other image of him is available. It also provides an example of how as a young man he was frequently cast in a military role. 1954 Courage School (Boris Gorik) 1955 Vasek trumpeter and his comrade (counsellor Mitya Bourtsev) 1955 Private Ivan (Russian: Солдат Иван Бровкин) (Ivan Brovkin) - image 1955 Son (Andrew Goriaev) - image 1956 Good luck! (Andrey Averin) 1957 Next to us (laid off workers) 1957 Detachment Trubacheva fight (counsellor Mitya Bourtsev) 1957 Street Full of Surprises (Vasya Shaneshkin) 1959 Ivan Brovkin on the State Farm (Ivan Brovkin na tseline) (Ivan Brovkin) 1960 Let Light (TV film, Efimkov) 1961 Long day (Lesch, excavator) 1961 Two lives (shoemaker) 1962 How to make toast (short, Grechkin) 1962 Kapron network (Valka, captain of the river tug Swan) 1963 Pitiable fate (short) 1964 All for you (Vorobushkin) 1967 Places still here (naval) 1968 Fire, Water, and Brass Pipes (Fedulov VI) 1969 Robbery (TV) 1969 New Year's Abduction (Новогоднее похищение) 1979 A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov (Russian: Несколько дней из жизни И. И. Обломова) (Luka Savich) 1979 Father and Son (Dorofeyka) 1980 Houses for forest (Bogomolov) 1980 Gigolo and Gigoletta 1981 Charm with secrets (baleen whales) 1982 Young Russia (Longinov) 1982 Along Unknown Paths (Tsar Makar) 1982 Charodei (Russian: Чародеи) (Amatin) 1983 Auction (Yegorych) 1983 Eternal Call (Yegor Kuzmich Dedyukhin) 1983 Quarantine (military in the zoo) 1983 From the life: head of criminal investigations (grandfather Stepan) 1985 Bagrationi 1986 Sitting good! (grandfather) 1986 Inside allowed (neighbour Professor)

Cartoon voiceovers 1969 In a Country of Unlearned Lessons (Cat)

Critical commentary on Ivan Brovkin Na Tseline poster The 1958 poster on the left illustrates the innocent face of the Brovkin character as performed by the sophisticated actor Kharitonov. It does this by contrasting the bland expression of the face with the shockingly modern (for 1958) complementary colours of the composition. The pictorial style predates the complementary colourist Andy Warhol's first exhibition of 1962, and demonstrates that it was part of the source-culture for that artist's work, which he called "artificial colour". The idea of re-working printed portraiture with gouache paints goes back to the previous century to such artists as Degas. The greyed-out sketch of the supporting actors in the top half of the poster serves to represent and encourage the audience's pleasure at seeing the Brovkin character on screen again. The poster contains another compositional joke or trick, as it appears to ignore the rule of thirds on the vertical axis, while actually fulfilling that visual requirement on the horizontal axis, although discreetly. This cleverness again parallels Kharitonov's clever but hidden acting skills.