Mosfilm has released footage of a fatal accident involving actor Yevgeny Urbansky, 57 years later. The press service of the film studio said that the film was found during an internal inspection of the premises at Mosfilm.
“Mosfilm has conducted extensive internal audits of its office buildings. One of them contained a box containing 70mm negatives. The imprint indicated that the material includes the shooting moments of the movie “Director” directed by Alexei Saltykov. The found film contains a documentary recording of the tragic death of the artist Yevgeny Urbansky on the set, ”the message says.
Mosfilm director Karen Shakhnazarov said he had never seen these frames before.
“These are truly unique frames that I was not personally aware of until now. Although I was still at school at that time, I remember very well the news of the tragic death of Yevgeny Urbansky – he was a famous actor, a favorite of the Soviet audience.
The sudden and tragic departure of such an important person from his life had great repercussions. But of course, we did not know all the details of what happened at that time. Everything fits into a short formulation: “the car turned upside down” – and that’s it … “, – aforementioned Shahnazarov.
The published video shows the last moments of the artist’s life: the car with Urbansky and his colleague rolls over the dune as they jump. Filming took place in Uzbekistan. The seriously injured player died in the hospital where he was taken. This is confirmed by entries in the shooting log. The tragedy happened in November 1965. Urbansky was 33 years old at the time of his death.
During the filming of the director’s movie, Urbansky’s wife, Latvian actress Dzidra Ritenbergs, was pregnant, and she was not informed of the accident. She gave birth to a daughter in February 1966, and only after that she was told of the death of her husband.
Rumors and speculation
The death of the artist gave rise to many versions. One claims that the actor was drunk when he got behind the wheel. Urbansky’s friends denied these rumors and insisted that the artist takes his job very seriously and cannot go on set in a drunken state.
Another version is that Urbansky was killed. It was alleged that the accident was arranged to hide another crime – about 800 rubles were stolen from his hotel room, and the actor suspected one of the film crew, including a stuntman – was named the culprit of the tragedy.
It was also alleged that Urbansky was never in the car.
Vladimir Balon, who is in charge of staging the stunts, said Urbansky was in the car but was driven by stuntman Yuri Markov.
“Open Rolls-Royce was driven by sports master Markov. Zhenya [Урбанский] holding a stretched rope with one hand, he rose to his full height on the right. In the back seat was a powerful storage battery for the headlights. Pushed off the platform, the car took off over the dune. And suddenly, with a sharp nod, he turned around. The front was heavier than the rear. Together with cameraman Tolya Nitochkin, we all rushed there, ”Balon said in an interview with Express Gazeta on May 11, 2004.
Markov, who survived the accident, did not provide any additional details about the incident.
“The car jolted easily, sped across the ground, hovered for a moment, and suddenly tipped to the front wheels, hitting the sand. A moment later, I was deaf with a dull pain… Someone’s hands were dragging me across the sand. When I opened my eyes, I saw an inverted “jeep”, and under it – Zhenya, “the stuntman recalled to this day.
According to Shakhnazarov, “the trick was not prepared properly.”
“This is evidenced, at least, by the group changing the firing point several times. It seems that the trick was done spontaneously – without prior preparation. I don’t think Urbansky’s presence in this scene matters at all. The shooting was carried out according to a general plan – the main character is almost invisible. He could have been replaced by a substitute. It’s unclear why Urbansky stayed in the car. I think if the film crew had insisted it wouldn’t have been there,” said Mosfilm’s director.
Urbansky’s career and life
Urbansky was born on February 27, 1932 in Moscow in the family of party worker Yakov Urbansky and telephone operator Polina Urbanskaya. The future actress was 6 years old when her father was oppressed and sent to a camp in the city of Inta (Komi), her mother and children went to Alma-Ata and moved in with her husband in Komi in 1946.
Urbansky returned to Moscow in his youth. At first he studied at a technical university and did not even think about cinema. At that time, Urbansky first married a girl named Olga, they had a daughter. In 1952, Eugene entered the Moscow Art Theater School, which he graduated at the age of 25, despite the opposition of his mother.
Fame came to the young actress immediately after graduation – she starred in the film “Communist” by Vasily Gubanov. Later he was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow Drama Theater named after KS Stanislavsky. The first and immediately important role was the merchant Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard.
Notable roles fell on the young actor literally: in 1959 he starred in Grigory Chukhrai’s “Ballad of a Soldier”, and in 1960 in Mikhail Kalatozov’s “Unsent Letter” – in Pavel Nilin’s “Trial Period”.
The actor influenced a number of famous personalities, for example, the film director Gennady Poloka claimed that the artist Vladimir Vysotsky adopted the style of singing from Urbansky.
“Vysotsky, who at that time was just starting his film career and taking his first steps into songwriting, modeled Urbansky’s style of singing with his guitar,” said Poloka (from Alla Demidova’s book “Vladimir Vysotsky”). love”).
Urbansky is also mentioned in the poem of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (“Ballad of Excellence”):
…So you fell into the desert, Zhenya,
not as a victim, but as a winner,
and also remotely – obliquely –
reach perfection
unreachable happiness,
collecting the sand…