Igor Vladimirovich Ilyinsky (11 (24) July 1901 – 13 January 1987) – theater and film actor, director, People’s Artist of the USSR (1949), winner of three Stalin Prizes of the first degree (1941, 1942, 1951). Muscovite from birth, Igor Ilyinsky from childhood was fond of theater. In 1917 he entered the studio of Komissarzhevskaya and six months later made his debut on the professional stage in the theater of the same name in the play Lysistrata.
Since 1918, Igor Ilyinsky worked in the following theaters: the theater HPSRO, the operetta "Bat", Terevsat, Moscow Art Theater, the First State Theater for Children. The role of the young actor remained unchanged during this period. The audience is most remembered for his comedic roles, including such as Selim (“Abduction from Harem”), Antonio (“Marriage of Figaro”).
In 1920, Ilyinsky decided on the stage, entering the Theater of the RSFSR (later the Meyerhold Theater), where he worked for more than 10 years. Here he played in the following performances: “Zory” Verharn (farmer Ghislen), “The Magnificent Cuckoldier” Krommelink (Bruno), “Krechinsky’s Wedding” (Raspleuev), etc. At the same time, Ilyinsky participated in some productions of the Moscow Drama Theater and the 1st Studio of the Moscow Art Theater.
Bright comedic images Ilyinsky begins to embody in cinema. The debut took place in 1924 in Yakov Protazanov’s film Aelita, and the first success came in 1925 with the role of Petit Petelkin in the film The Cutter from Torzhok by the same director. It is noteworthy that the role was written specifically for Igor Ilyinsky.
The actor becomes extremely popular, and until the early 30s actively removed, sometimes working in three films a year. Each film with the participation of Ilyinsky becomes an event and brings large fees. And the hero of Ilyinsky, in addition to comedy, begins to acquire a social color. The actor himself is tired of the comedic image, after some time was in a creative crisis. Retired from the theater and for five years refused roles in films.
In 1938, Igor Ilyinsky entered the troupe of the Maly Theatre, where he made his debut in “Woe from Wit”. On the stage of the Maly Theatre, Ilyinsky plays more than 50 years, and puts his own plays there.
Incredible success in cinema came along with the famous role of bureaucrat Byvalov in the comedy Volga-Volga by the famous director A. Alexandrov. The role brought the actor and the State Prize and a new wave of audience adoration.
Time dictated its own rules, and in place of the incriminating comedy came the conflict-free comedy. In the new format, Ilyinsky did not see a place for his characters, and for a long 18 years the actor stopped acting in films. During this period he focused on work in the theater and on the stage, where he proved himself as a great reader.
Return to the cinema took place only 18 years later. After the role of Zaitsev in “Mad Day” was the next picture, which brought the actor great success and love not only contemporaries, but also subsequent generations of viewers. The role of the bureaucrat Ogurtsov in the comedy Eldar Ryazanov “Carnival Night” became truly stellar in the biography of the actor.
The creative union with Ryazanov continued in 1962, when the director offered the actor a completely different role in style. In the immortal
Hussar Ballad Ilyinsky played a completely opposite role in stylistics, creating a memorable image of Kutuzov. It is curious that in the work on it, the actor proceeded from the interpretation of the personality of the commander given by L. Tolstoy in the novel War and Peace. And, nevertheless, this image perfectly fit into the heroic-comic style of the film.
In the last years of his life, Igor Vladimirovich Ilyinsky played in the theater of deeply tragic heroes, among whom was Thomas Opiskin ("The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants", F. Dostoevsky) and Akim ("The power of darkness", L. Tolstoy). /