Aleksandr Demyanenko

Soviet and Russian actor (1937–1999)

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Demyanenko (Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Демья́ненко; May 30, 1937 – August 22, 1999) was a Soviet and Russian actor. People's Artist of the RSFSR (1991). He is best known for playing the character Shurik in Leonid Gaidai's movies.

Aleksandr Demyanenko was born in Sverdlovsk, Soviet Union in 1937. Aleksandr's mother, Galina Belkova was an accountant. His father, Sergei Petrovich, was an actor who graduated from the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts. Sergei later worked as a director at the Sverdlovsk Opera Theatre, and as a child Aleksandr played bit parts at the theatre. Aleksandr attended a theater workshop at the Palace of Culture and parallel to that he studied piano at a music school. He also learned foreign languages with an emphasis on German in middle school and in high school started to sing in a baritone. In 1954 he began to study jurisprudence at the Sverdlovsk University of Law, but was expelled from the first semester for skipping lessons. In 1954 he failed to get into the Moscow Art Theatre, however in 1955 he was accepted both at the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts and at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute in Moscow. He ended up choosing Lunacharsky.

In 1959 he was cast in the film The Wind. The same year he graduated from the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts theatre acting school. He then worked in the Mayakovsky Theatre in Moscow. In 1959 he starred in Everything Begins with Hitting the Road. In 1961 Aleksandr Demyanenko moved to Leningrad and became staff actor at Lenfilm studio. There he starred in the film Grown Up Children. He then went on to play in A Night Before Christmas, Peace to Him Who Enter and was cast for the title role in Dima Gorin's Career. In 1962 he starred in A Trip Without a Load and Bang the Drum. In 1963 he starred in Cheka Employee, The First Trolleybus and Cain XVIII. In 1964 he starred in The Returned Music and State Offender. In 1965 he was cast for the role of Shurik in the classic Soviet comedy Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures. This role earned Demyanenko the image of nerdy student Shurik ("Shurik" being a diminutive form of the name Aleksandr). In 1966 he starred in the semi sequel to the film Kidnapping, Caucasian Style. In 1967, he starred in the film War Under the Roofs and in 1968 in The Dead Season. In 1969 he starred in Tomorrow, April 3 and The Ugryum River. In 1971 he starred in Dauria. In 1972 he starred in Hello and Goodbye and The Singing Teacher. In 1973 he once again reunited with Leonid Gaidai to star in the film Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future where he played a scientist named Shurik who invents a time machine. Demyanenko was unable to gain popularity for other roles as he was typecast as a scientist due to his tremendous popularity as the nerdy, crime fighting student Shurik. He frequently provided voice overs for foreign and domestic films, and even Donatas Banionis admitted that his dubbing was an improvement over his original acting. He became the stepfather to her daughter Angelica Nevolina, who later became an actress.