Valentin Gaft
Encyclopedia
Valentin Yosifovich Gaft ' onMouseout='HidePop("52937")' href="/topics/Moscow">Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

) is a Russian and Soviet actor, People's Artist of Russia
People's Artist of Russia
People's Artist of Russia, also sometimes translated as National Artist of Russia, is an honorary title granted to citizens of Russia.It succeeded both the all-Soviet union award People's Artist of the USSR , and more directly the local republic award, People's Artist of the RSFSR , after the...

 (1984).

Biography

Valentin Gaft was born in Moscow to a family of a lawyer Iosif Romanovich Gaft (1907–1969) and Gita Davydovna Gaft (1908–1993). The family moved to Moscow from Poltava
Poltava
Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....

, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. During the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Iosif Gaft served in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 finishing with the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

.

Valentin Gaft graduated from the School-Studio at the Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas...

 (1953–1957). Among the students of the same course were future popular actors Oleg Tabakov
Oleg Tabakov
Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov is a Soviet and Russian actor and the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theatre.-Theatre career:...

 and Maya Menglet. Gaft started his work for the cinema in 1956 in the Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Ilych Romm was a Soviet film director.He was born in Irkutsk. His father was a social democrat of Jewish descent who had been exiled there. He graduated from gymnasium in 1917 and entered the Moscow College for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture...

's film Murder on Dante Street.

After graduating Gaft worked for a number of theaters including the Mossovet Theater, Leninski Komsomol Theatre (under famous director Anatoly Efros
Anatoly Efros
-Children's Theatre and the Lenkom:Efros was born in Kharkov. In 1954, he was appointed to run the Central Theatre for Children in Moscow and managed to transform it from a conservative backwater into one of the most fashionable Soviet theatres....

), Theater of Satire. In 1969 he started to work for the Sovremennik Theatre
Sovremennik Theatre
Moscow Sovremennik Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow founded in 1956. "Sovremennik" means "Contemporary".-History:Sovremennik Theatre was founded by a group of young Soviet actors during Khrushchev Thaw...

 and works there to the present time.

Today Gaft is one of the most popular Russian actors both as a stage and as a movie actors. He also the author of poisonous but extremely popular epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s against many theatrical and movie figures.

Gaft is married to Olga Ostroumova
Olga Ostroumova
Olga Mikhailovna Ostroumova is a Russian and Soviet actress, best known for her roles in films Monday Sure Will Come , The Dawns Here Are Quiet and Vasily and Vasilisa...

, a popular actress.

Honours and awards

  • Order of Merit for the Fatherland
    Order of Merit for the Fatherland
    The Order of Merit for the Fatherland was instituted on 2 March 1994 by Presidential Decree. The statutes describe it as a decoration for merit, not an order of knights....

    ;
    • 2nd class (2 September 2010) - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic theatrical art and many years of creative activity
    • 3rd class (2 September 2005) - for outstanding contribution to the development of theatrical art, and many years of creative activity
  • Order of Friendship
    Order of Friendship
    The Order of Friendship is a state decoration of Russia established by decree # 442 of March 2, 1994 of the President of the Russian Federation....

     (11 August 1995) - for services to the state and achievements in work and significant contribution to strengthening friendship and cooperation between nations
  • People's Artist of the RSFSR (1984)

Sources


External links

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