Leonid Bronevoy


Leonid Sergeyevich Bronevoy was a Russian actor. Though primarily a stage actor in the Lenkom Theatre, Bronevoy also made occasional appearances in films. He was awarded a People's Artist of the USSR in 1987 and won the Nika Award in March 2008.

Life and career

Bronevoy was born on December 17, 1928 in the city of Kiev in the Jewish family of Solomon Iosifovich Bronevoy and Bella Lvovna Bronevaya. In childhood, he learned to play violin at the 10-year musical school under the Kiev conservatory. His teacher was the famous Kiev master, professor David Solomonovich Berthier.
The father of the future actor, Solomon Iosifovich Bronevoy represented the family of an Odessian confectioner, acted in Russian Civil War, who also worked at The State Political Directorate in 1920-1923, completed a legal education in Kiev, where he met his future wife, a student of Economy Department. Solomon Bronevoy worked at the Institute of National Economy until dismissal on charges of Trotskyism. In 1928 before the birth of his son Solomon Iosifovich got a job in Kiev District economic department of the Prosecutor General's Office. His elder brother, Alexander Iosifovich Bronevoy, helped him with getting that job. Later, Solomon Iosifovich was sent to Ivanovo. In 1933 was awarded the Order of Red Star, and in 1934 in the rank of Major of State Security appointed the director of 6-th Department in USSR's People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In 1935 he was dismissed from the NKVD and was appointed the chief of Kiev's "culture and recreation park". On September 13, 1936, he was arrested and on March 9, 1937 he was sentenced to five years in prison. The actor's mother divorced him and changed his son's patronym to "Sergeyevich", but that did not help - as a "family of an enemy of the people" she, with her son, was sent into exile in the city of Kirov region Malmyzh.
In 1941, the family was allowed to return to Kiev, but the World War II began and they were evacuated to the city of Chimkent, Kazakh SSR, where L.S. Bronevoy studied in high school and began to work independently. However, parents of Leonid Bronevoy never lived together since.
In 1950 L.S. Bronevoy graduated from the Alexander Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatrical Art Institute. After his graduation in 1950 he worked in Magnitogorsk and Orenburg drama theatres.
In 1953, Leonid took a chance and went to Moscow where he was able to immediately enter the third year of the Moscow Art Theater School and successfully complete it in 1955. After finishing the School-Studio, the actor left Moscow and got in Grozny Drama Theatre. Then there were the Irkutsk, and Voronezh.
From 1962 to 1988 he was the leading actor of the. Since 1988 - in the Moscow Lenkom Theatre.
First all-Union popularity Bronevoy got after playing the 45-year-old Muller role in the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring. He created the image of Gestapo chief - not primitive, sadistic bonecracker as the Gestapo is often portrayed in Soviet films, but a normal person with a sense of humor, simple manners and not too scrupulous attitude to the official ideology, but an intelligent, skilled professional and a dangerous enemy. And that image got striking, memorable, provocative and even respect for sympathy. Many replicas of television Mueller became popular expressios.
Another equally popular character of Bronevoy was the Doctor from the film Formula of Love. An elderly experienced man, for which there is nothing surprising in the world, and nothing that could shake his confidence in the correctness of his views on life. Many phrases Doctor pronounced with the Bronevoy's intonation, became popular meme. The same applies to the role of the artist's pop band Velyurov from The Pokrovsky Gate.
In subsequent years the actor had played more than twenty roles in the movies. The last was the role of an old actor in Zhuravlev's film, Simple Things, for which he received the Nika Award in March 2008.
His name appeared on a petition against Russian accession of Crimea, however, he himself stated in an interview that his name was placed without his permission, and that he, in fact, supports Vladimir Putin and Russian actions in Crimea.
He died in a hospital on 9 December 2017, one week before his 89th birthday.

Partial filmography