Leonid Kuravlyov
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
199
Gender
Male
Birthday
1936-10-08
Day of death
2022-01-30 (85 years old)
Place of Birth
Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Leonid Kuravlyov
Biography
Soviet and Russian film actor. He became a People’s Artist of the RSFSR in 1976. Kuravlyov was born in Moscow into a working-class family. His father Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Kuravlyov (1909–1979) worked as a locksmith at the Salyut Machine-Building Association and his mother Valentina Dmitriyevna Kuravlyova (1916–1993) was a hairdresser. In 1941 with the start of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) his mother was arrested on false report, accused of counter-revolutionary activity (Article 58) and exiled to Karaganda, Kazakh SSR to work at the local plant. In five years she was freed without a right to live in Moscow and sent to Zasheyek, Murmansk Oblast in the Russian far north where she continued working as a hairdresser. In 1948 she managed to get a permission to see her son who spent a year with her at Zasheyek, and in 1951 she finally returned to Moscow. In 1955 Kuravlyov entered VGIK to study acting under Boris Bibikov. He graduated in 1960 and joined the Theater Studio of Film Actors. He made his first movie appearances while still a student. In 1960 he was noted by Vasily Shukshin and took part in his diploma film Reported From Lebyazhye. In 1961 they both starred in the popular melodrama When the Trees Were Tall, and in 1964 Shukshin gave him the leading role in his comedy movie There Is Such a Lad which brought Kuravlyov true fame and which he considered to be the start of his successful movie career. He also acted in Your Son and Brother (1965) and felt so grateful for what the director did for him that he later named his son after Shukshin. The role of Shura Balaganov in Mikhail Schweitzer’s comedy The Little Golden Calf based on the book by Ilf and Petrov was one of his first successful roles: he managed to create an image of a brash yet charming petty thief. His other notable roles of that period include Khoma Brut in one of the first Soviet horror movies Viy (1967), antagonist Sorokin in a psychological melodrama Not Under the Jurisdiction (1969), Robinson Crusoe in Stanislav Govorukhin’s Life and Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1972), a Nazi officer Kurt Eismann in Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973) and Lavr Mironovich in Pyotr Todorovsky’s The Last Victim (1975). In the 1970s he appeared in three to four films per year. Even though Kuravlyov was adept at playing serious dramatic roles, he is still best known for his leading roles in top-grossing comedy movies such as Afonya (1975) by Georgiy Daneliya (11th highest-grossing Soviet film, highest grossing film of the year, 62.2 mln viewers), Leonid Gaidai’s Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (1973, 17th highest-grossing film, 60 mln viewers) and It Can’t Be! (1975, 46th highest-grossing film with 46.9 mln viewers), The Most Charming and Attractive (1985) by Gerald Bezhanov (the highest-grossing film of 1985, 44.9 mln viewers) and others. During the late 1990s he hosted a popular TV programme The World of Books with Leonid Kuravlyov where he talked about new book releases. In two years it was closed and then relaunched with new hosts. In 2012 he was awarded the IV class Order “For Merit to the Fatherland”. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Known For
Fuse
Streets of Broken Lights
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Twentieth Century Begins - Part 2
For the Matches
Brigada
Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century
Viy
Seventeen Moments of Spring
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
Investigation Held by ZnaToKi
Time, Forward!
The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed
Afonya
Sitting on the Golden Porch
Mimino
In Search of the Golden Phallus
Hope
Ono
Chest of Drawers Was Lead Through the Street...
Young People
Liberation: The Last Assault
What a Mess!
Ladies Invite Gentlemen
The Roundabout
The Enchanted Wanderer
Elder Sister
Enclosure
The Master and Margarita
Incognito from St.Petersburg
Spanish Actress for Russian Minister
The Book of Masters
The Rain
The Flight of Mr. McKinley
The Invisible Man
Pretty Face
The Codex of Disgrace
All That Jam
Funny People!
Private Detective, or Operation Cooperation
Boys
Provincial Benefit
Don't Leave Your Lovers
The Suicide
The Golden Calf
This Merry Planet
Nylon 100%
Men's Talk
There's Good Weather in Deribasovskaya, Or It's Raining Again in Brighton Beach
How Is It Going, Crucians?
The Seven Brides of Lance-Corporal Zbruyev
Destroy the Thirtieth!
Late Child
Demidovy
My Friends
First Encounter - Last Encounter
An Unrealistic Story
The Beginning
Esli Nevesta Vedma
Restricted Area
The Trust That Has Burst
Dangerous for Your Life!
The Last Sacrifice
Timur and His Team
Lyubushka
While the Dream is Mad
We're from Jazz
There Is Such a Lad
There Was No Sorrow
Not Under the Jurisdiction
KGB Agents Also Fall in Love
Detonator
Au-u!
Without Father
Seventh Skies
About Friends and Comrades
There Will Be No Leave Today
The Ballad of Bering and His Friends
You to Me, Me to You
Meet Me in Tahiti
Shine, Shine, My Star
Presumption of Innocence
White Queen's Move
Chekhov's Vaudevilles
Love of Serafim Frolov
Simple - Minded
Third Time
The Most Beautiful Horse
Vitya Glushakov - A Friend of the Apaches
When the Trees Were Tall
I Am His Bride
Fun for Old People
Queen's Personal Life
Lady Into Lassie
Эти невероятные музыканты, или Новые сновидения Шурика
Mirgorod and Its Inhabitants
Everything for You
One Time Deal
A Day and the Whole Life
The Adventures of Travka
Russian Miracle
Foam
Your Son and Brother
The Twelve Months
Fuss of the Fusses
Literature Lesson
Lev Gurych Sinichkin
Homeboy
Machinist Drove the Trains
The Barber of Siberia
Two Days of Wonders
Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession
Russian Account
Sincerely Yours...
Unanswered Love
Next of Kin
Copper Angel
Repeated Wedding
Take Care of the Men!
Look for a Woman
A Man for a Young Girl
May I Die, Lord...
Martinko
Holy Moly!
Life and Amazing Aventures of Robinson Crusoe
A Dog Was Walking on the Piano
The Wedding Gift
Such a Big Boy
The Love Arrow
Blackmailer
Счет человеческий
Nesrochnaya vesna
It's Just Awful!
Reports from Lebyazhye
Saga of the Ancient Bulgars: The Ladder of Vladimir the Red Sun
Tailcoat for an Idler
The Devil's Puppets
TASS Is Authorized to Declare...
Kysh and TwoBriefcases
The Stairway
The Ghost of My House
The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed
The Night Before Christmas
Railway Romance
Pyotr Ryabinkin
Крыса на подносе
A Show for a Single Man
Made in USSR
Chuffyk
Traces of Rain
New Year's Story
Aibolit and Barmaley
To Dream and to Live
The Turkish Gambit
Black Gloves
Without Witnesses
Karpusha
Heirloom
Five Minutes of Fear
Take Your Time
Three on the Red Carpet
Memories of Sherlock Holmes
Circus in the Circus
Across Red Nights
The Turkish Gambit
The Trust That Has Burst
Мастер и Маргарита
Life of Don Quixote and Sancho
Old Songs about the Main Thing 2
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The twentieth century begins
It Can't Be!
Midshipman Panin
Little Tragedies
The Stringer
The Most Charming and Attractive
The Twelve Months
Look for a Woman
Defeat
Entrance to the Maze
Northern Rhapsody
Live in Joy
Ultimatum
Old Songs About the Main Thing 3
Entrance to Labyrinth
Facts of the Past Day
Little Tragedies
Snake Catcher
Crazy Money
Evropeyskiy konvoy
Energetic People
Sentence
Before We Part
We, the Undersigned
Gangsters in the Ocean
The Saga of the Ancient Bulgars: The Tale of Saint Olga
Evropejskij Konvoj
The Left-Hander
Crash
The Heirs
Through All the Years
