Celebrated last year the centenary of the Theater. Vakhtangov continues to be shaken by loud scandals. After the departure of Viktor Sukhorukov, who was offended by his colleagues for “bad behavior”, and the expulsion to his native Lithuania of the chief Russophobe Rimas Tuminas, another abscess is ripening in the troupe. The long-standing confrontation between two mastodons – 64-year-old Sergey Makovetsky and 82-year-old Lyudmila Maksakova – has reached a new, unpredictable level. Behind the scenes, they say that people’s artists who hate each other a month ago even allegedly grappled in hand-to-hand combat.
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On Sergei Vasilyevich, one of the four great “M” of Russian cinema (Makovetsky, Menshikov, Mashkov, Mironov), such scandalous accusations are poured with unenviable frequency. It is difficult to say what it is connected with. Perhaps because of the quick-tempered and capricious nature. Or so colleagues envy his undeniable talent. The devil knows…
As for the conflict with Maksakova, according to eyewitnesses, the escalation flared up in the summer.
“They are both silent about the reason for the quarrel, like partisans,” a familiar Vakhtangov member admitted to Express Gazeta. – Sharp-tongued Lyudmila Vasilievna can be a terrible ulcer. And when she provoked Makovetsky with something, the theater found itself between two fires. By the way, Yevgeny Knyazev unsuccessfully tried to reconcile them. And when Sergei raised his, frankly, not heavy hand to the actress, they remembered that such skirmishes with ladies in his practice had taken place before. So, for example, he once had a terrible conflict with the now deceased Nina Ruslanova: they were housemates on the Arbat, often quarreled to the point of mutual squeals and fights, when kitchen utensils and even pans were used!
They also say that after the recent performance of the play “War and Peace” on bows, Makovetsky and Maksakova literally poured out this mutual hatred to the public. When the turn came to personal applause for Lyudmila Vasilievna, Sergei suddenly began to say something loudly, and the applause was thwarted.
“Sometimes they quarreled with Lyudmila Vasilievna, but these were purely creative quarrels,” Makovetsky justified himself in an interview. – Could with her on the eve of some premiere at each other. But tomorrow the premiere – and there is no trace of the quarrel, no negativity was dragged onto the stage, as if nothing had happened.
The scandalous couple took the stage in dozens of performances. They played former lovers, spouses, friends, mother and son. But now more and more often they are asked to include each other in different compositions so as not to overlap.
Ancestral Curse
Makovetsky came to the Theater. Vakhtangov in 1980. Maksakova by that time had been playing on this stage for 19 years and taught at the Pike, which he had just graduated from. From the very beginning, the young man proved himself to be an unbalanced, quick-tempered person. A typical spoiled choleric.
They say that at one of the meetings, Makovetsky quarreled with the director of the theater and threw a chair, breaking his finger. Of course, the novice actor decided to fire.
– But I take the Labor Code and say: “Why kick me out? According to the article, there is a transfer to a lower-paid position, ”Makovetsky recalled. – And I was demoted to the janitors. They gave me a plot from the service entrance to the entrance to the theatre… You can’t give in to such temperament. He bothered me since childhood. I don’t know how to get rid of this character trait. It will probably end…
For two months, Sergei swept the street for 65 rubles, then he was returned to the troupe and began to pay the previous 140. And after a while, his colleagues began to suspect him that Makovetsky was stealing from them for a drink.
– Yes, what to remember, it’s a long time ago! – actress Lyudmila Nilskaya, a classmate of our hero, shared with Express Newspaper. – They said the wallet was stolen. He was even expelled from the Vakhtangov Theater for this. But they regretted it and restored it. He was always pitied.
After the publication of that interview, Sergei Vasilievich personally called the editorial office and, shaming the editor on duty, assured for a long time that a colleague had told him.
But what he never denied was his former dependence on alcohol. Under the influence of alcohol, the artist became uncontrollable. “Desperate daily demonic period” – this is how Sergey Vasilyevich characterizes this segment of his life. By the way, from a hangover, he invented his own diabolical recipe: one hundred grams of cognac, a tablet of validol under the tongue and naphthyzinum in the eyes. The recipe is wildly harmful, most likely.
For help in getting rid of addiction, the famous actor thanks his wife and his friend, the doctor. And his personal psychic Miroslava assured that our hero got drunk because of difficult roles:
“He complained to me that after filming the film Makarov, where he played a poet, terrible things began to happen in his life that ended in hospitals, hard drinking, quarrels and the loss of roles,” the clairvoyant confessed to Express Newspaper. – He thought that his hero was to blame for everything. But as a result of our work, it turned out that since childhood, Makovetsky has been cursed by a family curse through his father. We worked on this topic so well that the unbelievable happened. The father of the actor, who disappeared before his birth, unexpectedly showed up and repented. After that, Sergei Vasilyevich even quit drinking.
Viktyuk’s favorite
Secular gossips like to discuss another delicate topic, muffled their voice, almost in a whisper. His sexual orientation. Like, it was not just that Roman Viktyuk noticed him at the time and made him a star. And Makovetsky’s elderly wife is purely for cover, like Galkin’s Pugacheva. With his wife Elena (ex-editor of the Odessa film studio), he has been officially married for almost 40 years. Moreover, Elena is 22 years older than the missus!
The couple has no children. Sergey Vasilyevich explains their absence by the fact that in his youth he was afraid of financial responsibility, and then it became too late. But, as a native, he adopted a stepson from Elena’s previous relationship. And now she is raising her grandchildren with pleasure.
When journalists try to find out the actor’s attitude towards gays, he explodes every time. And cats in his presence should not be insulted either.
– A correspondent came to me, who asked me for an interview for a month. She saw our cat Ball and grimaced: “Oh, how I don’t like ko-o-o-oshka!” And then she was out the door! – covered with crimson spots, Makovetsky once said.
Quote
Sergey Makovetsky:
– Our main trouble is that we do not live according to our conscience. We don’t say what we think. We feel one thing and do another
Photo source: Legion-Media, Larisa Kudryavtseva, Personal archive, Vyacheslav Prokofiev/TASS