Anatoly Ktorov.
Today, April 24, the Artist Foundation unveiled a memorial plaque on house number 12 in Bryusov Lane, where actors Anatoly Ktorov and his wife Vera Popova lived. This wonderful acting couple is depicted on a granite board. Together they worked at the Korsh Theater, and then at the Moscow Art Theater.
The Artist Foundation unveiled a memorial plaque on house No. 12 in Bryusov Lane, where actors Anatoly Ktorov and his wife Vera Popova lived.
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
The ceremony marking the installation of the granite plaque was attended by the artistic director of the Theater of Nations Yevgeny Mironov, artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov Konstantin Khabensky, rector of the Moscow Art Theater School Igor Zolotovitsky.
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
– The fate of actors is like drawings on the sand near the sea. Then a wave came running, washed away the drawing, and no one remembers this fate, although the drawing was originally unusually beautiful and intricate, – said Yevgeny Mironov. – Therefore, not on sand, but in granite, we captured two wonderful artists. Their level of talent, skill and service to the art deserves it.
Anatoly Ktorov on a poster from the 1920s.
In fact, the name of Anatoly Ktorov was Viktorov. He was born into a wealthy Moscow merchant family. His grandfather kept a shop on Nikolskaya Street. My father became a prominent chemist. And he decided to devote himself to art.
It is curious that in childhood Anatoly Ktorov stuttered badly. When he was five, his neighbor’s house caught fire before his eyes. And this shocked him so much that he began to stutter. However, this did not prevent him from entering the School-Studio of theatrical director and teacher Fyodor Komissarzhevsky at the age of 18. There he was helped to get rid of stuttering by a wonderful actor and teacher Illarion Pevtsov. Illarion Nikolaevich himself stuttered painfully. But he managed to overcome this shortcoming on stage.
During his studies, a stage name was born – Ktorov, thanks to which the public recognized the actor. Fedor Komissarzhevsky advised Anatoly Viktorov to remove the first two letters from the surname so that it would become more sonorous, they say, better for the stage. So the artist Anatoly Ktorov was born.
He began his career in studio theaters. In 1921 he entered the Korsh Theater, where he served for more than 10 years. Now it is the Theater of Nations.
In the cinema, he became famous after the release of the films of Yakov Protazanov: “The Cutter from Torzhok”, “The Feast of Saint Jorgen”, “The Trial of Three Millions”, where he starred with Igor Ilyinsky, with whom he was friends.
Igor Ilyinsky and Anatoly Ktorov in the film “Saint Jorgen’s Feast”.
After the release of Protazanov’s films, especially The Dowry, where Ktorov played Paratov, he became an all-Union star.
Ktorov played seducers. The spectators were thrilled and were crazy about him. Even the expression “smile like Ktorov” appeared. Magnificent external data, natural artistry put him among the most popular young stars of silent cinema. He played aristocrats, irresistible adventurers, sophisticated veils, vicious villains.
After the dissolution of the Korsh Theater, Vladimir Neimirovich-Danchenko invited Ktorov and his wife Vera Popova to the Moscow Art Theater. They served there for the rest of their lives.
The most famous role of Ktorov in the Moscow Art Theater is the role of Bernard Shaw in the play “Dear Liar”. His partner was Angelina Stepanova. The audience adored their duet. The performance ran over 400 times. And it was removed at the request of Stepanova, when Ktorov started having memory problems.
In the mid-1960s, after a long break, Anatoly Ktorov returned to the cinema: Sergei Bondarchuk invited him to play the role of the old Prince Bolkonsky in the film epic War and Peace.
For sixty years of creative activity, Anatoly Ktorov has played 99 roles.
The role of Prince Bolkonsky in Bondarchuk’s War and Peace.
He died on September 30, 1980 in his sleep in his apartment in a house on Bryusov Lane, where a memorial plaque was installed today. He was buried in a family grave at the Vvelensky (German) cemetery in Moscow.
