Alexander Abdulov and Irina Alferova: a love story
Their married couple was rightfully considered the most beautiful family in the Soviet Union. They met at Lenkom in 1976, where Alexander was already playing at that time and where the young actress Irina came. Abdulov and Alferova fell in love with each other at first sight. They looked at each other and could no longer part. They were made for each other.
At that time, Alferova, unlike Abdulov, was already known by the whole country from the film “Walking Through Torment.” The entire male population of the country went crazy for the beautiful actress.
Irina Alferova in the film “Walking Through Torment” But no one knew how to care like Abdulov. “He could make a holiday,” says Irina. – I enter the apartment and there are orchids all around. There are orchids everywhere. Above, below, left, right”... To get Irina’s consent to the marriage, Abdulov carried her in his arms for an hour throughout Yerevan, where they were then on tour. She did not agree to get married any other way. However, they were too, even defiantly beautiful. Such marriages do not have harmonious marital relations. When starting a conversation about this marriage, ordinary people usually began with the question: “Are they not divorced yet?” In Soviet times, Abdulov and Alferova were perhaps the only family who brought their family relationships to the public - together with their little daughter Ksenia, they hosted the morning children's television program “Alarm Clock.” Not only children, but also adults watched it. Conversations about “how he winked at her” or “how he looked at her” were enough for a whole week. Alexander Abdulov and Irina Alferova with their daughter Ksenia
Irina Alferova with her daughter Ksenia Abdulov and Alferova in the film “Do not part with your loved ones” This film is an ode to the love of Abdulov and Alferova. The plot is quite ordinary: Mitya (Alexander Abdulov) stops believing his wife Katya (Irina Alferova). He is tormented, tormented by jealousy, despite the fact that his wife did not cheat. They are getting divorced. Soon after the divorce, Katya ends up in the hospital. Quiet, with dull eyes, Mitya visits her. Their date is coming to an end. And suddenly she screams, choking with sobs: “I miss you, Mitya!” Pride, the desire for independence - everything is gone. Only love remained - real, all-consuming, the only one that was subjected to a cruel test and found itself again... The film is distinguished by its subtle psychologism and speaks about life in general. About the fact that love does not end after completing the paperwork... About young spouses whose feelings became obvious to them after the trials of jealousy, separation, and suffering. Of course, everyone who watched this film remembers the unforgettable final scene of the main character's hysteria. Quite a long time ago I read Irina Alferova’s confession that in the hysterical scene her heroine Katya goes crazy. This is probably how the play of the same name by Alexander Volodin, on which this poignant film was based, ends. But as such, there is no clear ending in this film... By the way, Irina Alferova never watches the film “Don’t Part With Your Loved Ones.” And in the early 90s, the family found itself at the center of several scandals. At first, Abdulov appeared before the public “without pants” - the scandalous journalist Daria Aslamova published excerpts from her “bed” memoirs. Abdulov was among those seduced. This was the first deep crack in the marriage.
Rumors started talking about divorce after Alferova starred in the video of singer Alexander Serov, and rumors immediately arose about their possible romance. Alexander Serov and Irina Alferova in the video “Do you love me” Alferova’s confession that she and Abdulov were finally officially divorced and she did not owe anything significant in her life to her ex-husband added fuel to the fire. In 1993, the marriage of the most beautiful couple in the country broke up... After the last conversation with Ira, Abdulov was flying through Moscow at night in a car. His heart was bursting with pain. He only needs Ira. Only she. But she rejected him... “You see, Sasha has done a lot in his life,” says Alferova, “but he is SUCH! And I understand him. It’s just... I just need something completely different in my life, but I understand him, why he did all this. Everyone needs Sasha! To all women! It’s for everyone!” After the divorce, Abdulov withdrew into himself. Drank a lot. Played at the casino. He had affairs, trying to find the “second Alferova”... 14 years of wandering without Ira, who all this time, as it turns out, loved him... When Irina found out about Sasha’s illness, she could not find a place for herself. I didn't know what to do. How to help him... “He did not spare himself, he gave a lot of energy, more than is due to people on this earth,” she says. For 9 days, Irina came to Sasha’s grave. She did not cry, sat silently for a long time, then quietly said: “Farewell, beloved!” Ksenia Alferova with her mother at the funeral service
Alexander Abdulov was born in Tobolsk, but soon theater director Gavriil Abdulov moved his wife and sons to Fergana. At the age of five, Alexander and his father appeared on the stage of the Fergana Drama Theater in the play “Kremlin Chimes,” but the desire to become an actor did not appear until after school. He was a regular at courtyard brawls, famous for his ability to make explosives from scrap materials, was a fan of the Beatles, was a poor student, but was seriously involved in sports - he received the title of candidate master of sports of the USSR in fencing. After school, at the insistence of his father, he took exams at the Shchepkinsky School, but failed and, without much worry, entered the physical education department of the Fergana Pedagogical Institute.
In parallel with his studies, Abdulov worked as a stagehand at his father’s theater, and a year later he went to Moscow again to storm theater institutes. This time he successfully passed the exams at GITIS. At the institute, no one questioned the student’s talent, but he was going to be expelled so many times for his behavior and absenteeism that everyone lost count. He spent all day at the institute, unloaded cars at night and still found time to organize some kind of prank. For example, stealing a bust of Lenin from a dormitory so that the guard will get in trouble for it, or bringing a sick leave with the stamp of the maternity hospital where his girlfriend worked...
At the graduation performance, Mark Zakharov noticed the student and invited him to Lenkom - immediately to play the main role in the play “Not on the Lists.” The young actor became an integral part of the troupe, in which Evgeny Leonov, Inna Churikova, Tatyana Peltzer, Oleg Yankovsky and many others had already shone, and devoted thirty years to Lenkom. He played in the most famous theater performances - “The Barbarian and the Heretic”, “Hamlet”, “For” and many others. In the production of “Juno and Avos” he appeared in three images - a man from the theater, a flaming heretic and Fernando Lopez. Once, the American delegation, watching the performance, seriously believed that the heretic was played by some kind of mental patient - he looked so detached. On tour in America, the organizers demanded that the torch in the heretic's hand be handcuffed. They were afraid that this “madman” could easily throw him into the hall...
The actor's spectacular appearance provided him with constant attention from women and an abundance of gossip around him. The first affair was with a classmate, however, the girl did not dare to go to Moscow with him and the relationship fizzled out. In Moscow, Abdulov met a medical student, whom he found with another man and cut her wrists in despair. He was saved by his roommate, who returned earlier than usual. After that, he met dancer Tatyana Leibel, they began to live together, but soon a new girl came to Lenkom - actress Irina Alferova...
Abdulov, who lost his head, almost immediately confessed his feelings to her, but Alferova remained indifferent. She had just broken up with her lover, was raising her daughter Ksenia and was not looking for a new relationship. Abdulov was not used to refusals and was determined to win her favor at all costs. A year later, he proposed to her, and she replied: “If you carry me through the park in your arms, I’ll marry you!” The actor was ready to carry her anywhere and for as long as he wanted... They signed, he adopted Ksenia, and for a long time many believed that she was his own daughter.
Alexander Abdulov began acting in films while still a student. His name first appeared in the credits in 1973, when he played a cameo paratrooper in the children's film “About Vitya, about Masha and the Marine Corps.” He became a famous film actor five years later - after the role of the Bear in Mark Zakharov’s fairy tale “An Ordinary Miracle.” When Zakharov, who was sorting through all the theatrical beauties, invited him to audition, the actor replied: “With pleasure, because anyway, I always audition, and then Kostolevsky is filmed.” This phrase caught the director’s attention, and he defended Abdulov before the artistic council, which believed that the young actor “wouldn’t last” next to Andrei Mironov, Evgeny Leonov and other masters. Zakharov was confident in the actor, since he had already filmed Abdulov in his “12 Chairs.”
A year after “An Ordinary Miracle,” the film “Don’t Part With Your Loved Ones” was released, where Abdulov’s partner was his wife Irina Alferova. After the premiere, they began to be called the most beautiful couple in Russian cinema, and their photos did not leave the pages of magazines. Together they worked in six projects, the last of which was the series “Trap”. As in the first film together, they played spouses experiencing a crisis in their relationship... At the time of filming, Alferova and Abdulov had long been divorced. Their marriage lasted for 17 long years, and the reason for the separation was the actor’s ebullient energy, love of parties, gambling and absorption in work. Then Irina Alferova said: “I need something completely different in life, but I understand it. That's just who he is. Everyone needs him."
Friendship was a sacred thing for Alexander Abdulov. Rush to the rescue, organize help, gather friends - he knew all this like no one else. Among his best friends were actors Vladimir Dolinsky, Alexander Zbruev, Oleg Yankovsky, Leonid Yarmolnik, as well as musicians and people far from art. Alexander Abdulov and Tatyana Peltzer had a special friendship - at first she stood up for the young actor in front of the theater management, and over the years he actually took patronage over the elderly actress and saved her from dismissal. They played together in “Funeral Prayer,” and Abdulov built the role so that the audience would not notice that the actress was forgetting the text. She called him “son” and was very attached to him until her last days.
In the 80s it was difficult to find a more popular actor than Alexander Abdulov. Every year several films with his participation were released - “Carnival”, “Sorcerers”, “Formula of Love”, “The Most Charming and Attractive”, “Ten Little Indians”, “Kill the Dragon” and many others, where Abdulov had, if not the main , then in any case a noticeable role. Good physical preparation allowed the actor to act in stunt scenes without doubles. At one of the film festivals, Abdulov even received a prize as the best stuntman for a stunt in the film “Kill the Dragon” - the actor was lifted by his feet to a height of 45 meters.
He never had problems with downtime; rather, on the contrary, problems arose due to the abundance of work. For example, in some scenes of “Sorcerers” he was played by an understudy, since Abdulov was simultaneously filming five films and could only come to the set at night. And this situation was commonplace for him. Even in the difficult 90s, Abdulov was overwhelmed with work - then his collaboration began with directors Viktor Sergeev and Sergei Solovyov, who gladly filmed him in their films. Abdulov played the most striking roles in the 90s with Viktor Sergeev - the swindler Nenashev from the film “Genius” and the killer Mute in the drama “Schizophrenia”.
In 2000, Alexander Abdulov directed the film “The Town Musicians of Bremen and Co.” This was his first experience as a feature film director, and the experience was not very successful. Excellent actors and musicians were involved in the project, but even they did not save the film from criticism, nor Abdulov from reproaches of lack of meaning and weak direction. After that, for a long time he did not dare to stand behind the director's console. Only seven years later Abdulov risked making another film, but his “Loser” was received coolly by both critics and viewers.
In 2006, an important event occurred in the life of Alexander Abdulov - he married for the second time. A pretty brunette had long been noticed in the actor’s company, but he always imagined Julia as his niece and only on the eve of the wedding he admitted that she was his bride and they had been living together for a long time. A year later, Alexander Abdulov had his first and only child - daughter Evgenia. Unfortunately, around the same time, the actor learned about the terrible diagnosis. In his last interview, he said: “I came up with this toast: “How I wish that all good things were said to me behind my back.” And I still live by this toast. This is the most valuable thing when good words are said in your back!.. The most important thing is my life! This is what I am made of. Therefore, I don’t regret anything, absolutely..." Alexander Abdulov died of cancer on January 3, 2008...
