Famous actress and artistic director of the Sovremennik Theater Galina Volchek is chained to wheelchair and moves only with the help of special equipment. The reason for this is the woman’s back problems. On December 19, 2019, the actress celebrated her next birthday. Despite this, the 85-year-old star, known to many generations, continues to fulfill her duties and work in the cultural sphere.
Galina Volchek's health status, despite her advanced age, remains stable today
Heart problems, quite changed appearance and constant movement in a wheelchair became the reason for numerous rumors that began to arise around the personality of Galina Volchek. Despite this, according to doctors, at the age of 85 this is a normal phenomenon.
On December 19, 2018, the actress and artistic director of the Moscow Sovremennik Theater celebrated her next birthday. The woman’s health remains stable, she can take care of herself independently and does not need constant medical supervision.
Having started your creative activity in the middle of the last century, Galina Volchek was able to outlive quite a few old-timers of the Sovremennik Theater. At the same time, she managed to surpass her teachers and reach the top of her career.
The deterioration of Galina Volchek’s health was the result of constant hard work in the theater
Actress Galina Volchek gave more than 60 years of her life to the Sovremennik Theater. All these years have been marked by constant creative process, painstaking work V different time days, sometimes even nervous breakdowns. As a result, in old age, the artistic director began to develop diseases characteristic of an elderly person.
About my stay in wheelchair the woman always preferred to remain silent. What exactly made her move with the help of a special means, Galina Volchek does not comment. She was first spotted in public in a stroller at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin in 2017.
Rumors began to appear in society almost immediately that the actress was paralyzed, but this information was subsequently not confirmed. In case of emergency, a woman can move freely.
Intervertebral hernia, which was diagnosed in Galina Volchek, became the cause severe pain in back. Considering weight and constant physical exercise women, she independently decided to transfer to a wheelchair in order to protect her health.
Actress Galina Volchek needs dangerous surgery due to health reasons
The situation with the actress’s health requires urgent surgical intervention. Galina Volchek understands that the guarantee that the required operation will be carried out successfully, it is unlikely that anyone will give it. It is for this reason, as well as because of problems with the lungs and heart, that the operation is postponed indefinitely every time.
Despite the rather considerable list of diseases that Galina Volchek is successfully fighting at the age of 85, the actress also continues labor activity. Talented actress and the artistic director of Sovremennik continues to delight the Russian audience.
The funeral service took place in her native theater, and many colleagues came to say a few farewell words to Nina Mikhailovna.
Among them was Galina Volchek, who throughout for long years heads Sovremennik. Those present noticed that Galina Borisovna looked exhausted and sick.
84-year-old Volchek was brought to the funeral ceremony in a wheelchair. She barely held back tears and hid her swollen eyes under dark glasses. Galina Borisovna looked so sick that many thought she was paralyzed.
In fact famous actress and the director has not been able to fully walk for several years due to severe back pain.
Experts diagnosed Galina Volchek with an intervertebral hernia. Discs weakened by a herniation poorly fix the vertebrae of the body along the physiological axis, increasing the load on the muscles and causing unbearable pain. With this diagnosis, emergency surgery is sometimes prescribed.
Galina Borisovna turned for help to the Israeli Center for Spinal Surgery, where one of the world's most famous specialists in this field, surgeon Ilya Pekarsky, works.
At one time, he performed spinal surgery on Evgeni Plushenko, helped Stanislav Govorukhin and others Russian stars. The main problem is that Volchek does not have a very strong heart, so the operation can lead to fatal consequences.
Behind last years Volchek was admitted to the intensive care unit several times with various diagnoses. Position of artistic director of complex creative team brings stress and nervous situations every day.
This is a film about a man who holds tightly in his hands for half a century famous theater“Contemporary”, but at the same time remains vulnerable and in some ways even naive. This is a film about incredible attraction, thanks to which today Sovremennik has such a bright and stellar troupe, consisting of actors popular and in demand in cinema, but absolutely devoted to the theater. Which always comes first for them.
One day, actress Chulpan Khamatova came to a rehearsal with her two-month-old daughter. So that no one would wake up her daughter, she left her in the stroller in Volchek’s office, placed a baby monitor nearby and went to rehearse. Very soon Volchek entered the office.
Chulpan Khamatova: “We’re rehearsing and suddenly we hear this: “Well, did your mother leave you?” Then she starts talking to her like an adult. “Don’t be offended by her,” she says.”
Amazing intuition for talent. Volchek accidentally saw Khamatova in a popular television program"Sight". And she said: “She should play in our theater!” Exactly the same way she once called Kristina Orbakaite and said: "I see you in leading role in the play "Two on a Swing". Come, let’s try!”
Actress Olga Drozdova generally considers Galina Volchek her second mother: “I spent only 17 years with my mother, and 30 with Galina Borisovna”. And this is again a story about Volchek’s intuition. " Give me back those little eyes!”“, Volchek said when Olga came, along with other graduates of theater universities, to show at Sovremennik. And she will leave the “little-eyed” one in Sovremennik. And he will take care of her and put her, as they say, on her feet.
Liya Akhedzhakova played roles in children's theater, and Volchek took her in, believed her and gave her “adult” roles. Konstantin Raikin was invited to Sovremennik immediately after graduating from theater school. Mikhail Efremov and Anton Tabakov call her mother. Because she and Sovremennik are their childhood.
Musician Garik Sukachev became the director of “Anarchy” on the stage of “Sovremennik” - a performance with “explosive” content. Elena Yakovleva left the theater twice and returned twice. And Volchek took her again twice.
And, of course, son Denis, who does not hide the fact that he was always jealous of his mother for the theater. But, growing up, I realized that Sovremennik was more than theater.
« I do not have,- says Volchek, - n and every free minute, the theater takes everything.” Still! There is no one anymore who created Sovremennik, but she exists. And she is a theater. Mark Abelev, her second husband, said in an interview for our film that Volchek is "a special state of madness."
On the day of Galina Volchek’s anniversary, December 19, after a major renovation that lasted several years, the Sovremennik building on Chistye Prudy opens. Repair, reconstruction - test. And even more so for a person who does not know life without theater. The happy completion of this stage is happy beginning another. In the life of the theater, and therefore in the life of Galina Volchek.
Turned 85 on December 19 People's Artist USSR, actress, director, teacher Galina Volchek. IN theatrical circles they call her the Iron Lady - she is strict and demanding in her work, but no one doubts her professionalism. She achieved considerable heights in her business, however, for this she had to sacrifice personal happiness...
Galina Volchek was born in 1933 in Moscow in the family of the famous director and cameraman Boris Volchek and screenwriter Vera Maimina, so her path was predetermined from childhood. Just a year after graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, she, together with other actors - Evgeny Evstigneev, Oleg Efremov, Igor Kvasha, Oleg Tabakov and Liliya Tolmacheva - organized the “Studio young actors»,
Galina Volchek's acting career did not last long - in the late 1950s. she went out to theater stage as an actress, but since 1962 she took up directing, and since then she has devoted all her strength only to her. IN last time she played in the play “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in 1984, and that was it actor career ended in the theater. But Galina Volchek periodically appears in films. Her film debut took place in 1957, and since then she has often received offers from directors. True, as a rule, these were episodic roles. But she turned every episode into a masterpiece. Just look at her She-Wolf in the fairy tale film “About Little Red Riding Hood” and her friend Buzykina in “Autumn Marathon”! True, she herself believed that she was offered very monotonous roles of “all sorts of half-monsters”, to realize her creative potential in such conditions it is simply impossible, so she decided to leave cinema.
As a film director, Galina Volchek began with film adaptations of her theatrical productions, and then made films based on original scripts - “Echelon”, “Steep Route”, etc. However, the theater always remained in the first place for her, to which she devoted her entire life. In 1972, she became the chief director of the Sovremennik Theater, and in the late 1980s - its artistic director. She was also called the first theater director to break the “cultural blockade” between the USSR and the USA - in the 1970s, at the height of cold war, she staged several performances based on Russian classics in American theaters, including on Broadway, and taught at New York University. Sovremennik became the first non-Broadway theater to win prestigious award"Drama Desk Award"
Galina Volchek had to sacrifice a lot for her favorite business. Including personal happiness. Officially, she was married twice. Her first husband was famous actor Evgeny Evstigneev - she lived with him for 9 years and gave birth to a son, Denis, who also became a director. Due to her husband's infidelity, this marriage broke up. The second marriage with scientist Mark Abelev also lasted about 9 years. Later, Galina Volchek admitted that her mother-in-law was absolutely right, reproaching her for the fact that nothing exists for her except the theater: “Alas, my absolute immersion in the theater greatly interfered with our lives. Mark was jealous and worried. And the publicity of my profession added discomfort - very difficult a self-sufficient man constantly feeling as if on the sidelines... In general, I didn’t give Markusha what was necessary in family life, the theater took all of me, without a trace».
Galina Volchek prefers not to remember another relationship that lasted for 10 years and did not end in marriage. After that, she decided to devote herself entirely to work, concluding that combining active theatrical activities and family concerns are simply impossible. Moreover, she was always fanatical about work - on the 17th day after the birth of her son, she already returned to the theater. Later Galina Volchek admitted: “As a result of this experience I finally realized: family life in her the usual understanding excluded for me. My theater went over it with a bulldozer... My whole life I led myself to the point that family became impossible for me. This is the natural state of a person who has sold himself into slavery in the theater».
Galina Volchek's first directorial work was the production of William Gibson's play “Two on a Swing.” Subsequently, she did not leave the Sovremennik stage for more than 30 years and became iconic for the director. She explained: “In order to talk about human relationships from the stage, you need to be able to analyze them, even dissect them. And the best subject for research is yourself. I once formulated my personal life like this: I had two marriages, several novels and one delusion, and everything lasted a long time. But besides love, my whole life, and now no less than in my youth, is also a kind of swing».
Unfortunately, all the outstanding actors with whom Volchek began working at Sovremennik are no longer alive - Oleg Efremov, Nina Doroshina, Evgeny Evstigneev, Oleg Tabakov. Galina Volchek is older than all the leading veteran actors of the theater - Valentin Gaft, Marina Neelova, Liya Akhedzhakova. Over the years, it became increasingly difficult for her to manage the theater and stay in line.
