This lop-eared second-grader from a Moscow high school with perky freckles on his face won over the director of the Gorky film studio, Ilya Abramovich Fraz, with his charming appearance. "The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase" - it is with this film that the creative biography of Andrei Gromov begins, the main character of the film about a boy who lacked courage. His film partners were Vasily Lanovoy, Evgeny Lebedev, Tatyana Peltzer, Natalya Selezneva, Georgy Yumatov and other actors of Soviet cinema.
Career start
According to some film historians, Andrei Gromov was able to become an actor thanks to his appearance. It was the boy's protruding ears that inspired the chief director of the children's film "The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase" I. A. Frez to take the Moscow schoolboy for the main children's role. More than a hundred children from different parts of Moscow were invited to test the film in the film studio of the Gorky film studio. All of them passed a special selection. “Children read poems, sang songs,they told fables, some were invited to dance,” recalls Andrey Gromov, an international economist today (see photo below).
“For some reason, poetic rhymes did not come to my mind, and I began to sing. After that, the second assistant director stopped me, and my mother and I went home, having lost all hope of success,” says Andrey Yuryevich Gromov.
Unexpected call
Only two weeks later, the doorbell rang at the Gromov family's apartment. A young film studio employee invited the boy to a photo test. A month later, the actor Andrei Gromov, having passed the screen test, is approved by the artistic council for the main children's role in the film "The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase". Thus began the cinematic career of a little artist.
Meeting the masters of cinema
In the process of working on the film, Andrei Gromov met with the masters of Soviet cinema. The grandmother of our hero, Anna Petrovna Veryovkina, was played by the inimitable Tatyana Peltzer, the children's doctor was beautifully performed by Evgeny Lebedev, and the mother of Petya Verevkin was a young actress Natalia Selezneva, known to everyone from the film by Leonid Gaidai "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Profession". The main shooting of the film took place in the capital of Estonia - Tallinn, in the old part of the city. Scenes with airplanes took place at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. The film was released in theaters in 1970 and was a huge success among both children and adults.
Valerka, Remka + …
This shorta film for children, filmed according to the script by Radiy Pogodin in 1970 at the Odessa film studio, directed by V. Kozachkova, was the young actor's second attempt at cinema. Before the first film was released, Andrei Gromov was invited to the next film, where he was to play the role of Valerka, a first grader. The protagonist of the picture falls in love with classmate Katya and tries in every possible way to draw her attention to his person, in which his faithful friend Remka actively helps him. However, the parents opposed this and forbade the children to go outside. After that, the friends swore to each other that no other girl would bother their attention. Valerka's father in the film was played by a wonderful theater and film actor, People's Artist of the USSR Yevgeny Yakovlevich Vesnik.
The main role of the young actor
Previous films by Andrei Gromov did not have such a resounding success as the picture "Officers", filmed at the Central Film Studio for Children and Youth Films named after M. Gorky in Moscow. The tape goes to the Soviet film distribution on June 26, 1971 and has a record gathering of viewers. In the first month of the show, it was watched by more than 50 million people in all corners of the Soviet Union and fraternal republics.
Andrey Gromov, an actor whose photos, along with other performers, were on all the covers of magazines in the Soviet Union, becomes a movie star. Newspapers wrote about the film and its actors, they were invited to creative concerts in different cities and towns of the country. Many boys dreamed of being in the place of Ivan Trofimov, the grandson of a military general, played by everyone's favorite actor Georgy Yumatov.
Fates like roles, roles like fates
The director of the film "Officers" Vladimir Rogovoy brought together bright and uniquely talented artists in the film. In addition to Georgy Yumatov (Alexey Trofimov), who played the main role in the film, the film starred:
- Vasily Lanovoy, the role of Ivan Barabbas.
- Alexander Voevodin, who played Yegor Trofimov in his youth.
- Alina Pokrovskaya, faithful and devoted wife of Alexei Trofimov.
- Vladimir Druzhinnikov, the role of squadron commander in Turkestan.
In episodic roles, the director involved Yevgeny Vesnik, Muza Kreptogorskaya, Boris Gitin, Nikolai Gorlov and other remarkable actors of that time.
How was it?
The script for the film "Officers" was written by Boris Vasiliev, the author of the famous story about anti-aircraft gunners during the Great Patriotic War "The Dawns Here Are Quiet". The entire filming process was under the personal control of the Minister of Defense of the USSR A. A. Grechko. They say that the famous phrase "There is such a profession - to defend the Motherland" belongs precisely to the head of the military department of the USSR.
At the personal request of the writer Boris Vasiliev, Georgy Yumatov, known for his difficult character, was invited to the main role. The role of his grandson, Suvorov Ivan Trofimov, was played by Andrei Gromov, who was approved by the same Minister of Defense. Therefore, the viewer should have no doubt that a real officer of the USSR Air Force should grow out of a graduate of the Suvorov School. Such a difficultthe ideological task faced by the ten-year-old Andrey Gromov, with which the guy coped perfectly. The audience's love for the film "Officers" has been preserved to this day.
Interesting facts
- According to a survey of the Soviet Screen magazine in 1971, Vasily Lanovoy was recognized as the best actor of the year in the country.
- At the film festival in Prague (Czechoslovakia) in 1972, the film by Vladimir Rogovoy received the Grand Prix and a diploma for military-patriotic themes in world cinema.
- Such stars of Soviet cinema as Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Spartak Mishulin, Nikolai Rybnikov, Vasily Shukshin, Vladimir Vysotsky, Evgeny Zharikov and other celebrities auditioned for the lead role of Alexei Trofimov.
- In the entire history of Soviet cinema, the film "Officers" ranked 31st among all domestic films in terms of audience attendance.
- The role of Ivan Barabbas could have gone to Nikolai Olyalin, Yuri Kamorny, Oleg Efremov, Oleg Yankovsky, Leonid Nevedomsky, Valentin Gaft or Alexander Lazarev.
- Wound on the back of Alexei Trofimov, who returned from Spain, was real. Georgy Yumatov was really seriously wounded during the Great Patriotic War.
- The famous song "From the Heroes of Bygone Times…" was performed by the second director of the film, Vladimir Zlatoustovsky.
- In 2011, the Soviet film received a second life. Color Formula has converted the film's black and white image into color.
- Meeting of comrades-in-arms after a long separation in one of the scenes of the filmembodied in sculpture. December 9, 2013 the heroes of the film "Officers" froze in bronze on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow.
Further fate of the young actor
After the tremendous success, the biography of actor Andrei Gromov in the cinema ended. In 1976, director Boris Rytsarev begins filming a fairy tale film based on the works of Hans Christian Andersen, The Princess and the Pea. Andrey Gromov was also invited to the company of actors Alisa Freindlich, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Igor Kvasha, Alexander Kalyagin, who took part in the filming of the film.
However, the boy refused to participate in the film and seriously engaged in preparing for admission to the university. After graduating from school, by the way, with honors, Andrey enters the Moscow State Institute of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics.
After graduating from MGIMO, Andrey Yuryevich Gromov defends his thesis on international law and receives a Ph. D. In the early 2000s, our hero represents the diplomatic corps of the Russian Federation at the United Nations in New York. The diplomatic career of A. Yu. Gromov is developing very successfully even today.
The personal life of the boy from "Officers" has also developed in the best way. His wife Tatyana, a doctor by profession, gave Andrei Gromov two wonderful children. The eldest son, Andrey Andreevich, is seriously interested in learning foreign languages. It is quite possible that this is a family one, and soon we will hear about another Russian diplomat, since the sonfollowed in the footsteps of his father. Andrey Gromov Jr. studies at MGIMO. Daughter - Vladislava Andreevna Gromova - goes to one of the Moscow schools.
