Full name: Mikhail Mikhailovich Zhvanetsky
Date of birth:
March 6, 1934
Zodiac sign:
Pisces
Age:
86 years
Place of birth:
Odessa
Nationality:
Jewish
Date of death:
November 6, 2021
Activities:
Writer, artist, satirist
Height:
171 cm
Education:
(OIIMF) Odessa Institute of Engineers navy
Marital status:
Was in a civil marriage
Spouse:
Natalya Valerievna Zhvanetskaya (Surova), Nadezhda Gaiduk, Larisa Kulik
Children:
Dmitry Zhvanetsky, Maxim
Childhood and youth, family
Mikhail Zhvanetsky was born on March 6, 1934 in the family of doctors Mane Moiseevich Zhvanetsky and Raisa Yakovlevna. A native Odessa resident and his parents go to live in the Vinnytsia region. The head of the family and his wife are doctors with Jewish roots. The boy turned seven years old, and the war broke out. My father is sent to Tashkent to take the position of chief physician in a military hospital. The family went with him.
Now little Misha's war years began. Misha Zhvanetsky graduated from three classes in Tashkent, then continued his studies in his hometown. Secondary school, then the Institute of Marine Engineers. As a student, he is already trying to write his topical monologues and literary sketches.
Awards
Zhvanetsky Mikhail Manyevich is a People's Artist of the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Zhvanetsky is a laureate of the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art, laureate of the Triumph Prize. The writer has the Order of Friendship of Peoples. The satirist is a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR and Russia, and is the president of the World Club of Odessa residents. Mikhail Zhvanetsky is an honorary citizen of Odessa.
Career, literary activity
The first topics were nature, everyday life, women. For the first time, Zhvanetsky received a positive assessment of his miniatures from the head of the Leningrad Theater of Miniatures, Arkady Raikin. The master read the works of the novice satirist and included several of them in the repertoire of his theater.
And four years after that, Mikhail comes to the theater to Arkady Raikin and remains to work there for six years. Returning to their homeland, Zhvanetsky and his artist friends Ilchenko and Kartsev organized their own theater and successfully toured the Soviet Union.
Later, Mikhail Zhvanetsky worked as a production director at Rosconcert, and changed this position to a new job at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house. Then he received an offer to take the position of artistic director at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures. The satirist created his monologues specifically for the performer. His miniatures were read by Sergei Yursky, Arkady Raikin himself and many other artists. Collections and books by the author appear.
Personal life
Mikhail got married for the first time after he received his college diploma.
The wife's name was Larisa Kulik. The newlyweds did not have their own home and lived with Larisa’s mother. There was no personal life, so everyone slept in the same room with the mother-in-law. The woman's indignation grew with every day they lived together. Zhvanetsky was still poor at that time. But soon the entire biography of the satirist changed completely. He followed Arkady Isakievich everywhere, and when he received five hundred rubles as a reward for his humoresques and squandered it all out of joy, Larisa decided to divorce her husband. Mikhail went to Leningrad, and his wife went to Paris, where she continued to manage the gallery, as her uncle bequeathed to her. Together with the theater of miniatures, Mikhail Mikhailovich goes on tour around Siberia. Zhvanetsky began an affair with a Siberian woman, as a result he had a daughter, Olya, whom he recognized as his own much later. In his native Odessa, Zhvanetsky’s collaboration began with the city team, which played in KVN. Along with the guys, Nadezhda Gaiduk competed and drew costumes, demonstrating her intelligence and beauty.
The beauty accepted the satirist's courtship for a year, then left for the capital. Mikhail lived in another capital, the lovers met occasionally, but were in no hurry to register their relationship. After ten years of romance, the couple had a child, a girl named Lisa. A long acquaintance and the birth of a daughter did not unite this union. At that time, Zhvanetsky already had a mistress, and Nadezhda broke off all relations with the writer.
Zhvanetsky’s television career is firmly connected with the continuation of the biography of his love affairs. The satirist is trying to break into television through the program “Around Laughter.” This project was led by the one whose heart Mikhail managed to win. Lovelace settled in the apartment of Muscovite Tatyana, thanks to whom he made his dream come true. At the same time, he meets Regina Ryvkina, his mother’s nurse.
Regina quickly became pregnant, caused a scandal and left for the States, where she gave birth to a son, Andrei, and demanded alimony payments from the child’s natural father. The next common-law wife of Mikhail Zhvanetsky was a graduate of a chemical university, Tatar Venera Usmanova, who sought to move to America. The couple lived together for ten years, they had a son, Maxim, but the wife still fulfilled her dream. She left Russia, taking her son with her.
Currently, Zhvanetsky’s wife is costume designer Natalya Surova, who fell into the satirist’s net when she was 24 years old. At one of the meetings of the Odessa Club, the girl worked as a waitress. The writer immediately liked her, although the age difference is 32 years. Natalya was carefully protected from all gossip concerning the stormy personal life of Mikhail Mikhailovich. She received an invitation to live together without obligations.
A son, Dmitry, was born, who needed to explain their civil relationship. In 2010, they finally visited the registry office. Zhvanetsky is interested in exercise equipment and continues to compose. All the children of the satirist have settled their lives, some of them became an actor, a journalist, the youngest is studying to become a psychologist. Zhvanetsky himself has the title of People's Artist of Ukraine and People's Artist of the Russian Federation.
Recent years, death On November 6, 2021, Mikhail Zhvanetsky passed away in intensive care. The famous satirist died at the age of 86. Before this, the writer had been ill for a long time and complained of feeling unwell.
A widow, a son and five illegitimate children will compete for Zhvanetsky’s inheritance
Mikhail Zhvanetsky with his son Dmitry. Photo: Personal archive
Mikhail Zhvanetsky was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. The writer died in intensive care at the age of 86 after suffering from prostate cancer. Mikhail Mikhailovich was one of the most outstanding satirists of our time. And a very loving man, which he generally did not hide. He led a stormy, rich personal life and never suffered from loneliness. A muse always appeared nearby, or even two at once.
Long road to success
Odessa resident Mikhail Zhvanetsky in his youth enjoyed the attention of the fair sex. The first time he married immediately after graduating from college was Odessa resident Larisa Kulik.
“We lived with my mother-in-law in the same room, and she reacted to every whisper, listened at night, she was always outraged by something, but there was nowhere to go!” — the satirist later recalled.
With his friend Viktor Ilchenko (they studied together at the Faculty of Mechanization of Freight Works), they created an amateur theater of miniatures, for which Zhvanetsky wrote his monologues.
In the summer of 1962, Arkady Raikin came on tour to Odessa. And there a meeting took place between the great satirist and the young playwright. “We showed Raikin the performance. We already had Roman Kartsev, he did pantomime skits and read monologues. I was the author of all these things.
After the performance, I noticed that something was wrong with Kartsev. “What is it, Roma?” - “Arkady Isaakovich told me to come to him tomorrow at the Chkalov sanatorium.”
When Roman came to him the next day, Raikin had already taken out a ready-made statement, which Kartsev only had to sign.” After Kartsev, Ilchenko and Gvozdikova left for Leningrad, I began to feel a great itch all over my body. In Leningrad I found some literary work in the House of Culture of the Food Industry. With the complete condemnation of my family, I resigned from the port and left.”
Raikin did not immediately accept Zhvanetsky as a staff member; he took his miniatures with difficulty; Mikhail received very little. His mother-in-law set up his young wife, saying, what kind of husband is he? He left and doesn’t earn any money.
“Raikin took the interlude “Avas” (which became famous), and I received 500 rubles,” recalled Mikhail Mikhailovich. — I moved into the Astoria Hotel for a couple of days with two girls, Roma Kartsev and Vitya Ilchenko. They drank and ate the money. When the play came out, I was paid about 1200 rubles after 89 rubles at the port! I was rich. Nevertheless, Larisa filed for divorce.”
For the satirist this was a blow; for a long time afterwards he did not want to cross the threshold of the registry office. And even at the end of his life, when his first ex-wife wanted to meet with him, he did not come to the meeting.
In 1964, Raikin invited Zhvanetsky to his theater as head of the literary department. During a tour of Siberia, the writer began an affair with a woman who bore him an illegitimate daughter, Olga. She was adopted by another man, but 18 years later her mother told her the truth about her father.
Olga herself found Zhvanetsky (she tried herself in journalism, offered to write an essay about him) and not from the first meeting admitted she was related. He did not argue, and they established communication.
Daughter of Mikhail Zhvanetsky Olga, born out of wedlock. Photo: Henrietta PERIAN
Assembled a "harem"
At the end of the 60s, Zhvanetsky was forced to leave the Raikin Theater. Not of his own free will - he disobeyed the order not to take sides. After parting with Raikin, in 1970 he returned to Odessa for a short time and collaborated with the Odessa KVN team. There he met and began dating an artist working in a team of cheerful and resourceful costume designers, Nadezhda Gaiduk.
The relationship developed rapidly, the lovers met and then separated. Later, Nadezhda came to Mikhail, who had moved to Leningrad. After ten years of relationship (the marriage was never registered), she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Lisa Gaiduk.
The illegitimate daughter of an old man, Elizaveta Gaiduk. Photo: Personal archive
Nadezhda (she is no longer alive) admitted to journalists that she was pregnant with Zhvanetsky’s child when she found out that he was not bored at all, after which she kicked him out the door with his things.
“I found out a little later about the affair with Venus Umarova, who, as it turned out, was also expecting a child from him - his son Maxim,” said Gaiduk.
Once a year - a thousand dollars
Among Zhvanetsky’s love victories, Regina Ryvkina, who worked in cinema, is famous. When the satirist's mother became seriously ill, Regina volunteered to look after her, becoming a nurse. After a fleeting romance, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Andrei Ryvkin, but his father refused to recognize him.
Andrey Ryvkin, illegitimate son of Zhvanetsky. Photo: Personal archive
Of all the illegitimate children, only Andrei (a journalist and film playwright, co-author of the script for the projects “Londograd”, “Dukhless 2”) publicly spoke about his relationship with his father, about how, at 16 years old, his father called him for the first time: “... Since then we saw each other ten times. Everything went according to the established scheme. Two-minute: how old are you now, like your mother, and then - a ceremonial presentation of an envelope with a thousand dollars and the obligatory parting words about “it should be a shame to take money from your father at seventeen.” I never refused. This annual thousand dollars became our link: he was too cowardly to admit that he abandoned the child and just wanted to pay off, and I was too cowardly to admit that my father did not need him ... "
Zhvanetsky met the oriental beauty Venus Umarova in Moscow. Venus graduated from a chemical university and got a job as a teacher. Within a few months they began to live together. Venus dreamed of leaving for the USA, although Zhvanetsky did not share this desire. She gave birth to the writer’s son, Maxim, whom she transported to America, where she set up a house and waited for Zhvanetsky to move to the USA for good. They planned to get married, but the satirist became interested in another woman in Moscow, Natalya Surova, who became his second and last wife.
Illegitimate son of Zhvanetsky Maxim Umarov. Photo: Personal archive
Family happiness
Mikhail Mikhailovich lived with Natalya Surova for more than a quarter of a century. She is 32 years younger than him, also from Odessa. They started living together when she was 24 years old and he was 56 years old. Natalya is a hydrologist by training and worked at a design institute.
Natalya became the satirist's secretary, housewife and his muse. In this marriage, in 1995, a son was born, Dmitry Zhvanetsky, a graduate of the production department of GITIS.
Mikhail Zhvanetsky and his second wife Natalya lived together for almost 30 years. Photo: Henrietta PERIAN/Global Look Press
Mikhail Mikhailovich admitted that in recent years he had completely calmed down and realized that there was no need to look for anything else. His wife accepted the presence of illegitimate children philosophically.
Zhvanetsky maintained friendly relations with Maxim and his mother Venus (they remained in America) until the very end.
Joseph Kobzon wrote in his book: “Zhvanetsky has a house in America, a family, and here is another family, and he lives in two camps.”
His former common-law wife Nadezhda Gaiduk told the media that Zhvanetsky, in addition to his illegitimate children, also has a son “on the side”, Grigory. His mother, Inna, was at one time a housekeeper in the satirist’s house. But he did not recognize Gregory and did not want to give his last name.
WALLET
What property did he leave behind?
The satirist's inheritance is estimated at at least 150 - 200 million rubles.
Zhvanetsky left an elite apartment in Moscow on Staropimenovsky Lane with an area of about 250 square meters. The cost of such living space is estimated at approximately 90 million rubles. (the minimum price for 100 square meters is almost 70 million rubles). Currently, Dmitry Zhvanetsky, his legal 25-year-old son from his wife Natalya, lives in this apartment.
A country house in the Moscow region costs at least 50 million rubles.
Zhvanetsky had real estate in his native Odessa - as an honorary resident of the city, he was allocated a plot of land above a cliff in the resort area of Arcadia, where he built himself a house. He also had real estate in America, but did not advertise it. According to some reports, large bank accounts remain. There is also an intellectual heritage left, which the heirs have the right to claim. This is not bad money. Let's say, the heirs of Vasily Shukshin receive copyrights for one hundred thousand rubles. per month each. Zhvanetsky's books are published and sold out quite readily.
AND THERE WAS ANOTHER CASE
Romance with the composer's wife
Today, one of Zhvanetsky’s acquaintances told us another personal secret of the satirist.
“In his youth, about 50 years ago, Mikhail changed women like gloves and often abandoned women pregnant by him,” said his friend Victoria. “I personally knew one of his beloved Valeria, the wife of the Leningrad composer Miloslavsky. The romance between Valeria (she was fond of painting) Miloslavskaya and Mikhail developed before my eyes. She dated Misha Zhvanetsky when her husband went on tour. She told me that she was in love with Mikhail and for his sake she was ready to leave her husband. Later, Valeria admitted that she gave birth to her only son from Misha. Her relationship with her husband deteriorated. And the son turned out to be unhealthy, it seems that he was even given a disability. Zhvanetsky refused to recognize him as his own. Misha left Valeria and went to Moscow. He never thought about the child again. The son bears the surname of Valeria’s legal husband. Valeria then divorced her husband and raised her sick child alone. She lived a very difficult life, she was in need, but as a proud woman she did not remind the writer of herself. She could have revealed her secret publicly for a lot of money, but as an intelligent woman she did not want to put on a show. She recently died.
It can be assumed that new possible heirs to Zhvanetsky’s multimillion-dollar inheritance will soon appear. So far there are six of them, about whom it is officially known (two daughters and four sons). Of these, only one son was born in an official marriage. The writer’s illegitimate children do not communicate with each other.
CHILDREN OF ZHVANETSKY
1. Olga (born in 1976 from an accidental novel by a satirist).
2. Elizaveta Gaiduk (born in 1978). In the photo - with his mother, artist Nadezhda Gaiduk, who lived with the satirist in a civil marriage for 10 years.
3. Maxim Umarov. His mother, chemist Venera Umarova, took the boy to the USA as a child.
4. Andrey Ryvkin (born in 1983 from Regina Ryvkina, Zhvanetsky’s mother’s nurse).
5. Dmitry Zhvanetsky (born in 1995). The only child of the satirist who bears his last name. His mother Natalya Zhvanetskaya is the satirist’s last wife; she lived with him in a civil marriage since 1990, and in an official marriage since 2010.
6. Gregory (no photographs in open sources). His mother is Inna, Zhvanetsky’s former housekeeper.
Mikhail Zhvanetsky: “Why be afraid of death?”
“I used to be afraid that I might be forgotten. Now I’m afraid that they might remember me” (c) Mikhail Zhvanetsky
