People’s Artist of the RSFSR, Artistic Director of the Moscow State Variety Theatre and a very original actor Gennady Khazanov does not need a special introduction. He is known to fans of theater and cinema around the world. However, Khazanov’s path to glory was far from easy.
Gennady Viktorovich was born in Moscow on December 1, 1945 in a simple Jewish family, his parents separated shortly after the birth of his son. As a result, Gennady found out about who his father was when he became an adult. As it turned out, he lived with his father all his childhood in the same house.
Gennady Khazanov is familiar with the world of the theater from a young age. His mother, Irida Mikhailovna Khazanova, worked as an engineer and spent a lot of time rehearsing an amateur drama circle, where she took her son. Gennady from a young age liked to laugh around. He could find something funny in everyone and very talented to tease. Growing older, Gennady with pleasure performed miniatures from humorous magazines, fables, parodied famous artists. He studied in two schools - in the usual general education and in music.
The true idol of Gennady Khazanov has always been Arkady Raikin. He memorized the texts of Raikin’s speeches, adopted gestures, facial expressions and intonations. When Khazanov was 14 years old, he personally met the great artist, who invited Gennady to his performance. Now Khazanov visited all the performances of Raikin, held in the capital and, as if under a microscope, studied all the works of the genius.
Despite the fact that from school years Khazanov participated in the amateur team, he was not even allowed to enter the entrance exams in theater universities. Alexander Shirvindt, who was present at the interview at the Shchukin school, recommended the hapless young man to enter the pop department of the circus school. In GUCEI Khazanov was enrolled for the second time. In fact, there he began to reveal himself as a unique actor.
The first large composition of Khazanov “Sharmanschik”, which was his student work, brought Gennady Viktorovich great success. After graduation, Khazanov began to work as an entertainer in the State Pop Orchestra of the RSFSR under the direction of L. O. Utesov, where his ability to feel the public and subjugate the hall immediately manifested.
In 1973, Khazanov became an artist of the colloquial genre of Moskntsert, traveled a lot around the country, toured in Bulgaria and the GDR. His monologue about a student of a culinary technical school, performed for the first time in an amateur studio, brought Khazanov huge popularity after performing on the professional stage. Then a few more numbers were written, continuing the story of the cook. The public also enjoyed literary parodies performed by Khazanov. In 1974, Gennady Khazanov received his first award - the prize and the title of laureate.
V All-Union competition of pop artists. This was followed by numerous concerts and tours, Khazanov became a welcome guest on radio and television. Sometimes he had to perform five or seven times a night.
At some point, Khazanov decided to realize his main dream at that time and create his own performance. It was “The Little Things of Life” with the participation of the ballet of the Moscow Pop Theatre. The performance, consisting mainly of diverse parodies, was a huge success. In 1981, the premiere of another performance of Khazanov – “Obvious and incredible”, which was positively expressed by some critics and ordinary viewers. However, there were those who slammed Khazanov for his sarcasticness and audacity, demanded that some episodes be removed from the production, or even closed the performance altogether, which happened in 1984.
The way to open concerts was closed to Khazanov, and he had to perform in clubs and closed evenings. All this only increased the popularity of the artist. Realizing that he was already tight in the genre of monologue in the image, Khazanov began to include stories of famous writers in his program. In his play “The Chosen Ones” Khazanov completely refused all kinds of entertainment and was left alone with the audience. Both this and the following, already more psychological performances, which marked a new stage in the artist’s work, were very warmly welcomed by the audience.
In 1987, Khazanov headed Mono, and in 1988 he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
The creative search of Gennady Nikolaevich did not stop, and he is on the stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, where he took part in the play by Sergei Yursky “Players – XXI”, and also created several single performances.
In 1997, Gennady Khazanov became the head of the Moscow State Variety Theatre. A huge theatrical event was the performances “Dinner with a Fool” by L. Trushkin and “Birds” by B. Milgram with the participation of Khazanov. No less noticeable were the works “Mixed feelings” and “Everything is like people.”
All this time, Gennady Khazanov starred a lot in films.
"Little giant of big sex" , "Khazanova, on demand", "Delusions of two", "Quiet pools" - in these films, the actor's talent manifested itself especially brightly.
Gennady Khazanov now performs a lot, including abroad. He is a member of the jury of the Supreme League of KVN, and also hosts the program “Family verdict” on TV3.
Khazanov is very devoted to his wife, Zlata Iosifovna Elbaum. Their daughter, Alice, having founded the Moscow Choreographic School and the Modern Dance School in the United States, devoted herself to the Bolshoi Theatre. /