Georgy Vitsin

Georgy Mikhailovich Vitsin (Георгий Михайлович Вицин; 18 April 1917 – 22 October 2001 ) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor.

Vitsin was born in Terijoki, former Finland, now Zelenogorsk, Saint Petersburg in 1917 (Soviet documents list him as having been born in Petrograd — now Saint Petersburg).

He enjoyed a long acting career and continued performing until close to the end of his life.

Apart from playing with Yuri Nikulin and Yevgeny Morgunov, he appeared in dozens of films that earned him the adoration of millions.

Modest and sympathetic characters played by Vitsin evoked kindly feelings of viewers.

At the same time the actor played in detective, historical and lyrical feature films.

His first film roles date to the 1940s.

He gained nationwide popularity in the former Soviet Union with the emergence of a series of 1960s comedies by director Leonid Gaidai.

He played the role of the Coward among a trio of colorful, scheming characters in such Gaidai movies as Bootleggers (1962), Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures (1965), and Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967).

The last two subsequently beat the Soviet all-time record of ticket sales.

The trio of actors, including the late Yuri Nikulin and Yevgeny Morgunov, was "the most popular ensemble in the history of the national cinema."

People's Artist of the USSR (1990).

In 1990, he was awarded the top artistic title of the Soviet era, that of People's Artist of the USSR.

In spite of the plenty of his characters Vitsin's talent deserved something greater and he never played the major role of his life.

“Vitsin is awfully gifted and both of us together are not worth his finger”, his partners Nikulin and Morgunov said about him.

According to film director Nikita Mikhalkov, Vitsin "was one of those rare people and actors whom upon meeting, you immediately feel as if they must know just as much about you as you know about them."

According to Mikhalkov, Vitsin was also rare in that his popularity did not affect his personality.

He was modest to the point that even in the years leading up to his death, when his financial circumstances were abysmal, he never asked for help.

Russian media reported that Vitsin had declined into alcoholism and vagrancy but these reports were false.

During the last seven years of his life Georgy Vitsin did not act in films and appeared only in comic concerts of the Theatre of Film Actor.

He died on 22 October 2001 at 4:30 p.m. He was buried at Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow.

A monument to Georgy Vitsin was established in Zelenogorsk in 2008 marking the town's 460th jubilee and the 90th anniversary since the actor's birthday.