General biographical information
Nikulin Yuri Vladimirovich, year of birth - 1921. Born in the city of Demidov, Smolensk province. Many fans are interested in the question, what is Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin’s nationality? The nationality of the actor is Jewish. Yuri Vladimirovich's mother, Lidia Ivanovna, was an actress at the Demidov Drama Theater. Father, Vladimir Nikulin, received a law degree before the army, but he never worked by profession.
Returning from the army, Vladimir Andreevich got a job in the same theater where Lidia Ivanovna worked. Both Nikulin's parents were good and fairly famous actors in their city. When little Yuri was born, his mother and father, having lived in Demidovo for another four years, moved to the capital. In Moscow, the future actor was assigned to school N346, where he studied from 1925 to 1939. Vladimir Andreevich got a job as a correspondent for a local newspaper, where he wrote reprises for the theater and circus. It was then that Yuri, inspired by his father’s creativity, realized that he wanted to bring joy to people.
Biography and personal life of Yuri Nikulin
The biography and personal life of Yuri Nikulin became of interest to numerous movie lovers after the man appeared in various films.
The birth of the future great comedian took place before the New Year holidays in 1921 in the small town of Demidov. Father - Nikulin Vladimir Andreevich and mother - Nikulina Lidiya Ivanovna worked in a theater troupe. At the age of 4, the baby moved to the capital with his parents. Soon Yurochka, who often spent time at the circus, began to dream of working here. In his free time, the boy loved to play Cossacks-Robbers and football.
During his school years, Nikulin drove teachers crazy with his antics. The boy was called a clown. Yura could not boast of good studies. He received only satisfactory grades.
Nikulin went to a school drama club, where he honed his acting skills. Our hero played only comic characters.
Yuri left school at the age of 14 and went to get a profession in a special educational institution. Then our hero had army service. It was located near the northern capital. During the Great Patriotic War, Nikulin defended Leningrad, receiving several medals.
Having been demobilized in mid-1946, Yuri decided to become a student at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography. But applying here and to other theater universities was unsuccessful. Then, on the advice of his family, the guy enters a circus school, specializing in clown.
For the first time, the star of “Moonshiners” and “Prisoner of the Caucasus” appeared on the circus arena in the late 40s. He began performing with the clown Pencil. In the 60s, comic artist Mikhail Shuidin became his partner. It was from this time that Nikulin began to work fruitfully in cinema.
The popular circus artist has published several of his books dedicated to clowning. In the 90s, he released an autobiography consisting of a large number of stories, which he called “Almost Seriously...”.
In the early 80s, the comedian became the director of the Moscow Circus, located on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. Many years later, after the artist passed away, this circus received his name.
In the 90s, Nikulin hosted the popular TV show “White Parrot,” in which those present told funny life stories and anecdotes.
In the mid-90s, he became the founder of a charitable foundation that helped circus performers.
In 1997, due to problems with the cardiovascular system, the great artist was forced to undergo surgery. But he was unable to recover from the anesthesia. The man passed away in July. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. A monument was erected at the grave.
Yuri Nikulin's personal life was happy. He lived his entire life with his wife, whom he met at the circus. The couple had an only son, who currently heads the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
Childhood and school years
The childhood of Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin was the same as that of all children of his time. At school he was an average student and often received criticism for his behavior. Although he did not have a good memory, Yuri played comedic roles in the school theater with great success, especially since the head of the drama club was his father, who persistently tried to develop his son’s talent as a comedian.
Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin himself dreamed of entering a military school, but his parents did not appreciate his intentions. The guy had no choice but to study in an ordinary new building school.
Years of life of Yuri Nikulin
Yuri Nikulin, whose photos in his youth and now are widely available, has a tall height of 178 cm. The artist did not drink or smoke for many years. He was actively involved in sports.
Many admirers of the actor’s talent are also interested in his nationality. He always called himself Russian, although the man has Jewish roots.
For many years, the popular film actor has been of interest to numerous fans of his talent. Even now, after the death of the great comedian, he is interesting to everyone. Often on television there are programs about him, from which you can find out everything about the man, including his height, weight, age. The years of Yuri Nikulin’s life are reliably known to everyone. He lived for 75 years.
Service in the Red Army
After graduating from school, Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin immediately went into the army, where the next seven years of his life flew by. His service takes place in an anti-aircraft artillery regiment. Yuri had a chance to fight near Leningrad, where the future hero of the Red Army received a shell shock. After Leningrad, he was sent to a separate anti-aircraft division N72, where he subsequently served from 1943 to 1946. During his entire service, he was assigned to the Order of Glory, 2nd degree, and received three medals: “For Victory over Germany,” “For Courage,” and “For the Defense of Leningrad.”
First steps into an acting future
Having been demobilized, Nikulin decided to follow in the footsteps of his parents and begin to build a career as a theater and film artist. He would be sure that a great future awaits him, because from early childhood his father awakened theatrical talent in Yuri. Even while in the army, Nikulin tirelessly delighted his fellow soldiers with comic roles, which he performed while participating in amateur performances.
In 1946, Nikulin sent documents to VGIK. But, unfortunately, his expectations are crushed. The commission removes him from the third round, declaring that he is not at all suitable for cinema, and if he so wants to devote his life to art, then let him enter the Theater Institute. Taking their advice into account, Nikulin sends documents to several educational institutions: to the school named after. Shchepkina and GITIS. But fate seemed not to want Yuri to become an actor. Both theater institutions refuse him, and he falls into despair. But soon Yuri was lucky - he was taken to the studio at the Noginsk Theater, where Konstantin Voinov was the director.
Childhood
Yuri Vladimirovich was born on December 18 in the city of Demidov, now located in the Smolensk region. His father served in the army in his youth and commanded a unit, but with age, due to health problems, he was forced to leave his post. And since he revered art all his life and loved theatrical performances, after leaving the military forces, he got a job at the Demidov Drama Theater, where he met Yuri’s mother, Lydia Ivanovna. From that moment on, they became inseparable - they went on stage together, went on tour and helped each other behind the scenes.
In 1925, the Nikulin family moved to live in Moscow. Parents get a job at the local theater and continue their creative activities, and young Yura goes to a completely ordinary secondary school No. 346. He will later write about it in one of his autobiographies: “... our school was absolutely ordinary, not remarkable in anything, from any point of view you didn't look. Theatre-goers did not come to us, amateur performance evenings were not held, poetry was not recited... An ordinary average school, unforgettable for a long time...”
And that is why acting abilities did not manifest themselves in the baby for a long time, forcing his parents to think and wonder why their son, like themselves, is not interested in creativity.
Circus life
Yuri Nikulin studied at the studio for very little time. He soon learned that the Moscow State Circus was recruiting new talents for its clownery studio. The actor decided to try his luck and went to apply again. Yuri's mother was against this, but his father supported the guy, saying that he could try - nothing bad would happen anyway. Yuri managed to enter the circus studio without any problems.
In 1948, on October twenty-fifth, he performed for the first time in the circus arena. The performance was prepared by his father, and Yuri’s partner was Boris Romanov. After some time, Yuri and Boris began to go on tour with the most famous and popular clown of the USSR - Karandash. Afterwards Nikulin began working together with Mikhail Shuidin.
Death of Yuri Nikulin. The actor's funeral at the cemetery
In mid-1997, Yuri Nikulin died. The actor's funeral at the cemetery was attended by a large crowd of people.
The star of “The Diamond Arm” died unexpectedly for everyone. In recent years, he often had heart pain, which led to surgery in the capital’s clinic. After surgery, the great actor was unable to recover from anesthesia. The great artist’s heart stopped.
Many movie lovers said goodbye to Yuri Vladimirovich. Politicians and artists came to the funeral. When the coffin with Nikulin's body was lowered into the grave, shots were heard.
A monument to Yuri Nikulin was erected at the grave. The actor is depicted in a sitting position, and next to him is a dog.
First and last love
In mid-1948, Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin met his love, Tatyana Pokrovskaya, with whom he lived for fifty years until his death. After meeting, the young people almost immediately tied the knot. Their meeting took place thanks to the dwarf foal Lapot.
The girl was a student at the Timiryazev Academy, where she studied at the Faculty of Horticulture. She was very fond of equestrian sports, and since there was a stable on the territory of the academy, the girl simply could not help but go there. And in this stable lived a charming foal with very short legs. When Pencil learned about this amazing creature, he decided to come and look at this funny creation of nature. He liked the bast shoe, and he asked Tatyana and her friend to teach the animal a few simple tricks. When the job was done, the foal was taken to the circus, where the girl met Nikulin, who at that time was still a student of Karandash.
Yuri invited the girls to watch the performance, to which they happily agreed. An absurd incident occurred there that cost the People’s Artist his health. Having fallen under a horse, Nikulin received serious injuries and was taken to the Sklifosovsky Institute. Tatyana felt guilty for what had happened and constantly visited Nikulin in the hospital. And literally six months later the young people got married.
In 1956, Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin became a father. On November 14, his son was born, whom his young parents named Maxim. The young man, having graduated from the Faculty of Journalism, worked for a long time as a radio presenter, then as a TV presenter of the “Morning” program. But ultimately he left television and worked in the circus management, where his father began his career.
Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin’s wife Tatyana Pokrovskaya died at the age of 86 in her home in Moscow as a result of prolonged heart disease.
Personal life
In 1949, Yuri Nikulin met Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya (December 14, 1929 - October 26, 2014, Moscow), the granddaughter of P. Ya. Rostovtsev (a zemstvo figure, deputy of the State Duma of the first convocation), who soon became his wife. Pokrovskaya acted in films, worked as a circus performer until 1981, translated books from English, and was awarded the Order of Honor in 2002.
I studied at the Timiryazev Academy at the Faculty of Ornamental Horticulture and was very interested in equestrian sports. The academy had a wonderful stable. And in the stable there is a very funny dwarf foal, with a normal head, a normal body, but on small legs. His name was Lapot. Pencil heard about this and came to see this horse. I liked the horse, and Pencil asked my friend and I to teach her the simplest tricks. Then the horse was brought to the circus, and Karandash introduced us to Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin, who was one of his students. Yuri Vladimirovich invited us to watch the performance. My friend couldn’t go, I went alone, sat on the spotlight. They played a very funny scene: Karandash supposedly called one spectator from the audience and taught him to ride a horse. But just when I came to the performance, Yuri Vladimirovich, who played the role of a spectator during this performance, was run over by a horse. She beat him so much that he was taken in an ambulance to Sklifosovsky. I felt guilty and began to visit him... And six months later we got married... Tatyana Pokrovskaya.
Among Yuri Nikulin's close friends were Oleg Tabakov, Leonid Gaidai, as well as the Indian actor and director Raj Kapoor, popular in the Soviet Union.
On November 15, 1956, a son, Maxim Yuryevich Nikulin, was born into the Nikulin family - now the general director and artistic director of the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. Maxim Yuryevich has three children: Maria (born 1981), Yuri (born 1986) and Maxim (born 1988). Great-grandson of Yuri Vladimirovich - Stanislav Yuryevich Nikulin (b. 2009, Moscow)
First film roles
Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin, whose photo you see in the article, received his first film role in 1958. At this time, director Feinzimmer was in search of a person who could play a role in his new comedy “Girl with a Guitar.” This picture was filmed according to the script of Boris Laskin and Vladimir Polyakov. Polyakov recommended a candidate in the person of Yuri Vladimirovich. But Nikulin initially refused, because he remembered well what the examination committee told him.
However, after some deliberation, he gave his consent. He had to play a pyrotechnician performing his best act - fireworks. The public liked this film and took tenth place in the list of the best films. But it turned out that the funniest episode was the one in which Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin starred. The spectators laughed heartily at how the would-be pyrotechnician almost burned down the store and the office where the examination committee sat.
Clown as a vocation
After the war, Yuri Nikulin decided to enter VGIK, but he was not accepted. The same story repeated itself with GITIS. The teachers did not see the applicant’s acting talents, which they directly stated to him. Fortunately, Yuri Vladimirovich did not despair and began his studies at the school-studio of conversational genres at the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
With my wife
Source: vremya.tv
This circus became Nikulin’s home. Here he began his creative activity and happily worked all his life. At the beginning of his career, Yuri Vladimirovich was an assistant to the popular clown Karandash (Mikhail Rumyantsev), then from 1950 he performed a duet with M. Shuidin. Sometimes Nikulin’s wife, Tatyana Nikolaevna, whom he also met at the circus arena, took part in clown interludes as a third partner. The work of the clowns was mainly based on the contradictions of characters: Nikulin portrayed a touching romantic (and took the stage name “Yurik”), and Shuidin – an enterprising bully.
In the circus arena
Source: visualrian.ru
Yuri Vladimirovich worked at Tsvetnoy for half a century: until 1981 he himself performed on stage, then he became the chief director of the circus, and then the director. He thought that in retirement he would be able to walk, relax and do things not related to work, but he could not part with the circus. Already in his new status, Nikulin continued to do good deeds there. Under him, the building on Tsvetnoy Boulevard was completely rebuilt and updated; Yuri Vladimirovich personally observed the progress of the work.
The beginning of an acting career
Mosfilm director Yuri Chelyukin, seeing talent in Nikulin, offered to star in his comedy film “The Unyielding,” where Yuri Vladimirovich had to play the swindler Klyachkin. After some time, Nikulin himself was invited by Eldar Ryazanov to play the main role in the film “Man from Nowhere”. Thus, Yuri met Igor Ilyinsky, a famous actor of the USSR. He suggested Nikulin change his field of activity, replacing work in the circus with creativity at the Maly Theater. But Yuri Vladimirovich did not change his life and refused.
When filming of the film “Nowhere Man” began, something went wrong, and Ryazanov stopped filming. He returned to it only a year later, but now the director wanted to see Yuri Yakovlev and Sergei Yursky in the leading roles, and he gave Yuri Nikulin a very small role.
Death and memory
The exhausting schedule undermined the artist’s health. By the age of 70, he had diabetes, problems with blood vessels and liver, and pain in the lungs. In the summer of 1997, unbearable pain in my heart was added to this list. The examination showed blockage of the main heart vessels. They began to prepare the actor for the operation, which, due to many complications, promised to be a difficult test for both the doctors and Nikulin. However, the artist went to the operation with a light heart.
Yuri Nikulin in the last years of his life
Up to a certain point everything went well, but just before the final, what the doctors feared most happened - the heart of the people's idol stopped. They managed to launch it, but for about half an hour Yuri was in a state of clinical death. Half an hour on the verge of life and death - internal organs began to fail. For the next 16 days, doctors fought for Nikulin’s life, but on August 21, at 10 am, his heart stopped forever. Thousands of people came to the memorial service for the actor, including President Boris Yeltsin. The artist was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Yuri Nikulin's grave
In memory of the great artist, memorial plaques and monuments in his honor were erected in different cities of Russia. In particular, these can be found in Khabarovsk, Kursk, Irkutsk, Sochi and in the actor’s hometown of Demidov. The circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, with which the life and fate of the actor was connected for a long time, was named in his honor. The ship assigned to the port of Rostov-on-Don also bears the name of Yuri Nikulin.
Rise to the top of cinema
Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin gained enormous fame thanks to the short comedy “Dog Barbos and the Unusual Cross,” which was filmed in the first half of the sixties by director Leonid Gaidai. Yuri got to the shooting of this film with the help of one of Gaidai’s assistants, who invited Nikulin to audition.
Looking at Yuri Vladimirovich, the director immediately said that he would take him for the role of the Goonie, since he was the best fit. The filming was supposed to take place at a time when Nikulin was busy working at the circus. Leonid Gaidai turned out to be an understanding person and made amendments to the shooting. Now they took place at a time when Yuri Vladimirovich was completely free from his main activities.
The film “Barbos the Dog and the Unusual Cross” brought great fame to Nikulin, and with him to Vitsin and Morgunov. People all over the country knew and admired this funny trio. After a storm of applause caused by “Barbos the Dog,” Leonid Gaidai decides to again make a short film with the participation of Nikulin, Morgunov and Vitsin. This time the film is called “Moonshiners,” which was born in the director’s head thanks to Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin. He told how he and his partner Mikhail Shuidin performed an interlude called “Moonshiners.” Gaidai really liked this idea, and that same evening he sat down to write the script together with Konstantin Brovin.
The short film “Moonshiners” was released in 1961, subsequently becoming one of the most watched and beloved films of Soviet cinema, and the funny trinity became a cult television symbol of the country.
Wikipedia Yuri Nikulin
Wikipedia Yuri Nikulin is a reliable source of information about this great film actor. The page provides a large amount of information about the man. Here you can find out where you were born, how you spent your childhood and teenage years, and how you began your creative activity. On Wikipedia you can read in which films the artist played, indicating his role. Read also: Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Morgunov biography.
The popular film actor is not registered on social networks. During the years of his life, the Internet had not yet gained ground; it had just been invented.
Currently, Yuri Nikulin’s pages are on Odnoklassniki and VKontakte. Fans posted numerous photos and videos on them. Here you can watch excerpts from films. Songs from films are of particular interest.
Nikulin Yuri Vladimirovich: filmography
Yuri Nikulin starred in about forty films, but the most memorable of them are the following:
- "Captain Crocus."
- "Andrey Rublev."
- "Twenty days without war."
- "They fought for their homeland."
- "Old robbers."
- "The twelve Chairs".
- "New girl."
- "The Diamond Arm".
- "Business people".
- “Come to me, Mukhtar!”
- "Little Fugitive"
- "Dog Barbos and an unusual cross."
- "Prisoner of the Caucasus, or Shurik's new adventures."
- "When the trees were big."
- "Operation Y and other adventures of Shurik."
- "The Man from Nowhere".
- “Give me a book of complaints!”
- “My friend, Kolka!”
- "Moonshiners."
- "Big "Wick".
- "Girl with a Guitar"
- "Dreamers".
- "Scarecrow."
Nikulin Yuri Vladimirovich, whose films became real masterpieces of cinema, took his work with great responsibility and never slacked.
Yuri Nikulin's wife - Tatyana Pokrovskaya
Our hero and his future wife met at the circus. Yuri Vladimirovich was injured during the rehearsal period. The girl began to visit him. It was from this time that their relationship began. Many years later, Yuri Nikulin’s wife, Tatyana Pokrovskaya, recalled that she was attracted by the young man’s ability to look optimistically at the world.
The woman appeared in several films. She played the role of the wife of Semyon Semyonovich Gorbunkov in “The Diamond Arm” and as a doctor from a madhouse in “Prisoner of the Caucasus.”
Tatyana Pokrovskaya outlived her husband by several years. She kept his memory alive. In mid-2014, the woman died. Her burial is located not far from her husband's grave.
