Vasily Livanov

Vasily Livanov studied at Moscow Academic Art Liceum, Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and Top Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors. The recorded working language is Russian. Employment is recorded with Soyuzmultfilm. Distinctions recorded are Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class, People's Artist of the RSFSR, Merited Artist of the RSFSR and Order of Honour.

• Name — Vasily Livanov • Native Name — Василий Ливанов • Honorific Suffix — MBE • Birth Name — Vasily Borisovich Livanov • Born — 19 July 1935 • Birthplace — Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union • Occupation — Actor, animation director, film director, screenwriter, writer • Years Active — 1959–present • Spouse — Elena Livanova (1973–present) • Children — 3 • Parents — Boris Livanov and Evgenia Livanova

Vasily Livanov was born into a famous theatrical family. His paternal grandfather Nikolai Aleksandrovich Livanov (1874–1949) was a Volga Cossack from Simbirsk who moved to Moscow in 1905 and performed at the Struysky Theatre under a pseudonym of Izvolsky; after the revolution he worked at the Mossovet and Lenkom Theatres. Vasily's father Boris Livanov (1904–1972) was also a prominent actor and stage director who served at the Moscow Art Theatre all his life, while his mother Eugenia Kazimirovna Livanova (née Prawdzic-Filipowicz) (1907–1978) was an artist who belonged to Polish szlachta. Vasily was brought up in the artistic milieu. Many famous actors who worked with his father, like Olga Knipper, Alla Tarasova, Vasily Kachalov (whom Livanov was named after), as well as Pyotr Konchalovsky, Boris Pasternak, Valery Chkalov were frequent guests at their house. In 1940 his family was staying in Chernivtsi along with other Moscow actors, and his Polish nanny took him to the local Catholic church where he was baptized, presumably with his mother's permission. Today he belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church despite never officially converting. His family spent the first war years in evacuation and in 1943 returned to Moscow. In 1954 Vasily graduated from the Moscow Secondary Art School under the USSR Academy of Arts, and in 1958 he finished the acting courses at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute. His film career started in 1959 with one of the leading roles in the Letter Never Sent. The movie was shot in taiga at −40 °C, and the director Mikhail Kalatozov decided that Livanov and Samoilova should voice their characters shouting not in the studio, but outside, right in the woods. As a result, Livanov lost his voice, and in two weeks it returned as a unique hoarse timbre that would become one of Livanov's trademarks ever since.

In 1966 he finished the High Directors Courses where he studied under Mikhail Romm and joined Soyuzmultfilm as an animation director, screenwriter and voice actor. During the next ten years he wrote and directed several animated films, including Most, Most, Most, Most and The Blue Bird feature. Yet his biggest success came with The Bremen Town Musicians animated musical, a modernised adaptation of the eponymous folktale he created with Yuri Entin and Gennady Gladkov. Both parts showed heavy influence of rock and roll and hippie cultures which was unusual for the Soviet cinema. The first film was directed by Inessa Kovalevskaya, while the sequel On the Trail of the Bremen Town Musicians (1973) was directed by Livanov himself. The leading Soviet pop singer Muslim Magomayev voiced almost all characters in it which only added to the overwhelming popularity of the series (Oleg Anofriyev did the exact same thing in the first film). Livanov was also the voice behind multiple popular Soviet animated characters such as Gena the Crocodile from the Cheburashka series, Karlsson-on-the-Roof from the Soviet adaptation of Astrid Lindgren's fairy tale and Boa from 38 Parrots.

In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, Livanov returned to film stardom in what became the greatest success of his acting career: the role of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles and other Holmes TV series directed by Igor Maslennikov. Those movies were filmed between 1979 and 1986. Vasily Livanov played Sherlock Holmes. On 27 April 2007, a sculpture featuring Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as portrayed by Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin was opened on the Smolenskaya embankment alongside the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Moscow (sculptor Andrey Orlov).

Livanov was married twice. His first wife (1958–1970) was Alina Engelgardt, daughter of the acclaimed Soviet biochemist Vladimir Engelgardt. They had a daughter Anastasia. Since 1972 he has been married to Elena Artemievna Balabanova, an art director and animator. They have two sons, Boris and Nikolai. In 2009 Boris was charged with a murder of Igor Khromov whom he cut with a knife during a drunken brawl; he was imprisoned for nine years, but set free following a parole in 2015. In June 2017 Maria Golubkina, an actress, daughter of Larisa Golubkina and stepdaughter of Andrei Mironov, announced her engagement to Boris Livanov, but in just a month they "decided to take a break". Vasily Livanov was a close friend of Vitaly Solomin and Rina Zelyonaya, who played Doctor Watson and Mrs. Hudson. As he writes in his memoir: "It happens so that when someone passes away, we customarily treat his actions and related events as the thing of the past. But everything about my beloved closest friend and partner Vitaly Solomin has become a part of my way of life, my conscience, so for me it will become the thing of the past only when I pass away too." He is a staunch supporter of Vladimir Putin and his policies against Ukraine, supporting both the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

• Junior and Karlson (1968) as Karlsson-on-the-Roof • Gena the Crocodile (1969) as Gena the Crocodile • Karlson Returns (1970) as Karlsson-on-the-Roof • Cheburashka (1971) as Gena the Crocodile • Shapoklyak (1974) as Gena the Crocodile • 38 Parrots (1976–1991) as Boa • Dog in Boots (1981) as English Detective • The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981) as Gromozeka • Cheburashka Goes to School (1983) as Gena the Crocodile • The Pass (1988) as Boris

• Most, Most, Most, Most (1966; director and screenwriter) • The Bremen Town Musicians (1969; screenwriter; co-written with Yuri Entin) • Ded Moroz and Summer (1969; screenwriter; co-written with Yuri Entin) • The Blue Bird (1970; director and screenwriter) • On the Trail of the Bremen Town Musicians (1973; director and screenwriter; co-written with Yuri Entin) • The New Bremen Town Musicians (2000; screenwriter; co-written with Yuri Entin)

Vasily Livanov was recorded at birth as Василий Борисович Ливанов. The authorities additionally record the headings Vasily Borisovich Livanov and Vasili Livanov. His recorded language was Russian. He was the child of Boris Livanov and Evgenia Prawdzic-Filipowicz. He married Elena Livanova and Alina Engelgardt. 2 children are recorded: Boris Livanov and Anastasia Livanova.