Venyamin Smekhov

Veniamin Borisovich Smekhov (Russian: Вениами́н Бори́сович Сме́хов; born August 10, 1940, in Moscow) is a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor and director. He was the winner of the Petropol Award (2000) as well as the Tsarskoselsky Artistic Prize (2009). He refused the title of People's Artist of Russia, which was offered to him on his 70th birthday.Smekhov has long worked in the Moscow Taganka Theatre where his roles included Woland in a stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. His portrayal of the main antagonist of the story is considered to be the best of any adaption of the novel. In film, he is best known and loved for the role of Athos in a Russian version of D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers (1978) and its sequels (1992, 1993). He also has written children's poetry, scripts, memoirs and comedic materials. Veniamin Smekhov spent his childhood in Moscow on Second Meshchansky Street (present day Gilyarovsky Street). He saw his father only after he returned from the war in 1945. From 1947 to 1957 he was a student at School № 235 on Pal'chikov Lane where he was a part of the Palace of Pioneers drama club. V.E. Struchkova led the club and Rolan Bykov worked with the students. In 1957 Veniamin was accepted into the B.V. Shchukin Theatre School, the conservatory of the E. Vakhtangov Theatre. He studied in the class of V.A. Etush. It was Veniamin's uncle, Lev Smekhov, who encouraged him to study at the school. In 1959 he was removed from his class and began the second year of study as an auditor. This was a probationary measure. In April of 1959 he regained his student status. His graduation performances included Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in which he played Covielle, and Ostrovsky's Warm Heart in which he played Narkis.

In 1961 Veniamin graduated from acting school and was sent to the Kuybiyshevsky Drama Theatre where he worked for one year. Upon his return to Moscow in 1962, director A.K. Plotnikov accepted him into the Moscow Theatre of Drama and Comedy. In 1964 Yuri Lyubimov became head director of the theatre. Lyubimov reorganized the theatre and it became the Taganka Theatre. From 1985 to 1987 Veniamin worked in the Sovremennik Theatre where he, along with Leonid Filatov and Vitaly Shapovalov, fled after Lyubimov's expulsion from the Soviet Union. Veniamin returned to the Taganka Theatre in 1987 and worked there until 1998.

Veniamin began acting in films in 1968, but he gained widespread popularity after playing the role of Athos in the famous made-for-television film D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers, filmed at the Odessa Film Studio in 1978. He played Athos in all of the followup films as well.

In 1967 he began working as a freelance television director at Gostelradio USSR, the main producer of literary-drama programs. His first work was the teleplay Mayakovsky's Day. It was based on his own script and aired as a part of the Poetic Theatre series. In 1990 he began directing theatre performances, operas and made-for-television films in Russia and abroad, and he taught acting for several years in American universities. During this time he continued to act at the Taganka Theatre when he was in Russia.

In America Veniamin released a series of compact disks, The Library of Russian Classics, in 1998. He has made around 20 solo audio books as well as a large collection of audio book compilations.

In 2011 Veniamin returned to the Taganka Theatre as a guest actor and director. He reprised the role of Woland in Master and Margarita on two occasions that included a dedication performance in memory of actor Vsevolod Sobolev and the 50th anniversary of the Taganka Theatre. He currently performs as an actor in two poetic performances No Years (he also composed and directed this performance) and The Spine of the Flute. He lives in Moscow and very frequently tours with his performances and evenings of poetry. Veniamin also makes poetic programs and documentary films for television. He is also the author of several books of both poetry and prose, and memoirs. He has called himself an actor, director, writer and traveler. Veniamin has participated in theatrical online readings of the works of Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Bulgakov, including Chekhov Is Alive (September 25, 2015), War and Peace. We Read the Novel (December 8, 2015) and a Google-Reading of Master and Margarita. I Was There (November 12, 2016).