Bruno Frejndlikh

Bruno Arturovich Freindlikh was born on October 10, 1909, in Russia. His German ancestors were invited to Russia by Tsar Peter the Great and settled in St. Petersburg around 1700's. The Freindlikh family started a successful glass-making factory in the Russian capital. Young Bruno Freindlikh received an excellent private education and was amateur actor at school. From 1931-1934 he studied acting at the Leningrad Theatrical School, then studied at the Leningrad Institute of Arts from which he graduated in 1938 as an actor. Freindlikh worked on stage at the Leningrad State Theatre named after Komsomol, which was evacuated to the city of Tashkent during the Second World War. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, all members of the Freindlikh family were arrested "as German suspects" upon the order from Joseph Stalin. Actor Bruno Freindlikh escaped the arrest because he was evacuated with the theatre to the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. From 1941-1945 he worked at the Leningrad Theatre for the Young Audience in evacuation, and returned back to Leningrad after the end of the siege in 1945. From 1946-1948 he worked with the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theatre. From 1948-2002 Bruno Freindlikh was the leading actor of the Pushkin Drama Theatre in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). There his best role was his highly acclaimed portrayal of Ivan Turgenev in the biographical play 'Elegy'. His stage partners at the Pushkin Drama Theatre were Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Simonov, Konstantin Skorobogatov, Yuriy Tolubeev, Aleksandr Borisov, Vasiliy Merkurev, Leonid Vivyen, Olga Lebzak, Nina Urgant, Igor Gorbachyov, Valentina Panina, and other notable Russian actors. In 1941 Bruno Freindlikh played Hamlet on stage, in what was the first collaboration of director Grigoriy Kozintsev and writer Boris Pasternak, before they made the legendary film. Bruno Freindlikh was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for his film work, and received many other awards and decorations from the State of the USSR. He was honored with the title of the People's Artist of the USSR. He died on July 9, 2002, in St. Petersburg, and was laid to rest in the "Literatorskie mostki" Necropolis of The Masters of Art at Volkovskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia.