Ivan Mozzhukhin

Ivan Mozzhukhin was a legendary actor of Russian silent films, who escaped execution by the Soviet Red Army and had a stellar career in Europe. He was born Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin on September 26, 1889, in the village of Kondol, Saratov province, Russia (now Penza province, Russia). His father was general manager of the large estate of Prince Obolensky. Mozzhukhin attended all-boys Gymnasium in Penza, then studied at the Law School of Moscow University for two years. There he was active in amateur stage productions and joined a touring troupe, then returned to Moscow and was a member of the Vvedensky Narodny Dom Theatre.

He made his film debut in 1908.

From 1911-14 he worked in the films of producer Aleksandr Khanzhonkov.

Mozzhukhin shot to fame after his leading role as violinist Trukhachevsky in Kreytserova sonata (1911) by director Pyotr Chardynin, based on the eponymous story by Lev Tolstoy. He starred as Adm.

Kornilov in Defense of Sevastopol (1911) and in about 30 more silent films made by Chardynin, Yevgeny Bauer and Khanzhyonkov. By the mid-'10s Mozzhukhin was the indisputable leading star of the Russian cinema, having such film partners as 'Diaghilev''s ballerina Vera Karalli, and his own wife Nathalie Lissenko. His facial expressions were studied by many actors and directors as exemplary acting masks.

While Mosjoukine left no official progeny, French novelist Romain Gary (original name Roman Kacew) had maintained that his birth in Vilnius on 8 May 1914 was the result of an affair between his mother Nina Owczynska and the 24-year-old Ivan Mosjoukine who was on the verge of becoming the most popular leading man of Czarist cinema. At the time, Nina was a young, minor Polish-Jewish provincial actress, recently married to one Arieh Kacew. In 1960, Gary wrote a novelized autobiographical account of his mother's struggles and triumphs, La promesse de l'aube (Promise at Dawn), which became the basis for an English-language play and a French-American film. The play, Samuel A. Taylor's First Love, opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on Christmas Day 1961 and closed on 13 January 1962, after 24 performances. In 1970, returning to its original title, it was adapted for the screen and directed by Jules Dassin as a vehicle for his wife Melina Mercouri (then aged 49), who played Nina. Dassin, who was 59 years old at the time, chose to play Mosjoukine himself in the single scene that the character appears in the film.

From 1915-19 he worked in about 40 films by directors Yakov Protazanov and Viktor Tourjansky under the legendary Russian producer Joseph N. Ermolieff.

His best known films of the Russian period were Pikovaya dama (1916) and Otets Sergiy (1918), both by Protazanov. Mozzhukhin's incredible popularity brought him significant wealth, but that came with attendant pressure; he also became famous for his numerous love affairs with his admirers.

In 1918 the Russian Communist revolution had already caused irreversible destruction of cultural and economic life, and Mozzhukhin moved under protection of the anti-Communist White Russian forces in Yalta, Crimea. There he worked for Ermolieff during the Russian Civil War. Meanwhile, Soviet government leader V. I. Lenin ordered the seizure and nationalization of all film studios and their films, properties and other assets to use for making Soviet propaganda' most of Mozzhukhin's 70 films were arrested and / or censored. Lev Kuleshov used fragments of Mozzhukhin's films to demonstrate his editing ideas. Mozzhukhin's face was used in Kuleshov's psychological montage to illustrate the principles of film editing, known today as the Kuleshov Effect. Mozzhukhin suffered terribly from the loss of his property after the Communist revolution.

However, he continued working in Yalta with Ermolieff until the end of 1919. When the Red Army advanced into Crimea and broke through to Yalta, however, he joined the White Russians and fled the now-communist Russia at the end of the Civil War.

He managed to save a few rolls of his silent films, which he took aboard the Greek steamer Pantera\ in February of 1920. He left Russia together with his film partners from the Ermolieff film company, his wife Nathalie Lissenko, actors Nicolas Koline and Nicolas Rimsky, actress Nathalie Kovanko, cinematographer Nikolai Toporkoff, director Viktor Tourjansky and producer Joseph N. Ermolieff. They emigrated together to Paris, France, and started a Russian-French film company.

In 1926 Mozzhukhin got a lucrative contract with Universal Pictures in Hollywood, and was cast as the male lead in Surrender (1927). However, his stint in Hollywood was not a success, due to numerous pressures from the studio's producers who insisted on his taking the stage name John Moskin. In addition, Mozzhukhin and his female co-star Mary Philbin did not get along at all, and that was quite apparent from the footage that they had no chemistry whatever. Ats Hollywood at that time was just making the transition from silent films to talkies, Mozzuhkhin--who did not speak English--was not offered any further roles, and he returned to Europe. Soon Aleksandr Vertinskiy began to comment that Mozzhukhin's troubles in Hollywood were the results of a conspiracy by the powers in Hollywood to destroy a strong competitor.

After a unsuccessful excursion to Hollywood where he shot the movie "Surrender" (1927), he went to Germany where he also became a darling of the public in no time at all with movies like "Geheimnisse des Orients" (1927), "Der geheime Kurier" (1928) and "Manolescu - König der Hochstapler" (1929), but he wasn't able to continue his earlier successes in Russia and France.

He continued starring in the talkies of the 1930s, although not as successfully as he had during the silent era. He also wrote screenplays for several of his films, and planned to direct a film in France, but the project was abandoned because he contracted a severe form of tuberculosis and was hospitalized.

By 1939 Mozzhukhin had made over 100 films in Russia, France, Italy, the US, Germany and Austria.

Mozzhukhin died of tuberculosis in a Paris clinic on January 17, 1939, and was laid to rest in the Russian Cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in Paris, France. Mozzhukhin's home in Kondol, Penza province, is now restored as the public Memorial Museum of Ivan Mozzhukhin.