Ukrainian clown Sergei Gladkov died at 60, according to an official report. The public learned of his passing through social networks where his work as a performer and clown was widely celebrated. The cause of death and other specifics were not disclosed.
The publication Dumskaya noted that Gladkov had been ill in recent years, but did not provide further details.
“Another legend has passed away. Seryozha has died. He was a friend, a wonderful person with a great sense of humor, a unique clown and actor — an irreparable loss”, said Yuri Stytskovsky, a former member of the comedy group Masks and a host of the Pun program.
What remained clear is that the images created by Gladkov “will forever remain in the palette of the best face masks in the world,” and the projects in which he participated were consistently original, authorial, and memorable.
Actress Evelina Bledans, who starred with Gladkov in the Mask Show, shared via social media that she was saddened by the comedian’s death: “He was a very funny, nice, and talented guy. May his family bear this loss. Losses like this are difficult. I offer my condolences to his relatives.”
Farewell to Gladkov was scheduled for October 21 in Odessa.
The man in Village of Fools
Gladkov was born in 1963 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute and later began working as a clown. He also completed courses in directing and mime.
In 1985 he founded his first clown troupe, Parthenon, and two years later he established the Magazin Fu trio with Vadim Nabokov and Tatyana Ivanova. Nine years later, the group joined with the duet La Dolce Vita, which also included Yuri Stytskovsky and Alexey Agopyan, giving rise to the Kalambur group and its television magazine of the same name.
The program aired on the ORT TV channel from 1996 to 2001 and later aired on Channel One. It was later discontinued. Over the years, episodes also appeared on TNT, Pepper, and Che channels.
The television magazine featured several sections; one of the most famous was Village of Fools, which drew on motifs and clichés from Ukrainian and Russian folklore. The ensemble included Man (Sergey Gladkov), Dad (Tatyana Ivanova), Sailor (Vadim Nabokov), and Misha the bear (Alexey Agopyan). Across the episodes, Adam attempts to obtain moonshine, often with Sailor’s assistance, while Dad expresses disapproval by hitting the characters with a rolling pin or frying pan.
“Idiots — is this what we are talking about? The fool found a horseshoe, brought it home, turned it upside down, and there was a horse. That is what ‘village’ means, stupidity”, Gladkov himself commented on the project.
Among his favorites was a sketch about thermonuclear moonshine — the chemists who produce moonshine from various ingredients, distilling it multiple times until two bottles contain a dark green, highly flammable liquid.
“The idea that distilling the mash yields a much stronger product was thought up by the fools themselves; they pursued the process not to drink immediately, but to distill again and again”, the artist explained.
Miss Burple and the Air Traffic Controller
Gladkov’s other well-known roles in Pun included Miss Burple and the air traffic controller in the episode Steep Dive, a parody of disaster films. In the running joke, a Broiler 747 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean over the course of the series that spanned hundreds of episodes.
Additionally, Gladkov played a loser in Bar Pun and the eccentric Drunkel in Iron Kaput. He also contributed to the sound design of the television magazine.
“All the musical promotions relied on the involvement of our sound engineer Sergei Gladkov”, noted Stytskovsky.
After Pun
In the early 2000s, Gladkov worked as a sound engineer on comedy projects such as Comedy Quartet, Comedy Cocktail, and Friendly Family.
In 2003, together with Vadim Nabokov, he produced 62 episodes of the cartoon SOS about the Man and the Sailor from Village of Fools, with each episode lasting about a minute.
“I am now moving more toward the role of a sound engineer”, Gladkov stated in 2020.
Following the television magazine’s closure, he contributed to Çıplak ve Komik and other projects, opened his own recording studio, and raised two daughters.