Georgy Zhzhenov family children. Why actor Georgy Zhzhenov was imprisoned

“Father literally pushed Smoktunovsky out of the Arctic. He said: “I am an exiled face, I have to sit here. What are you doing? Times have changed, go to the mainland!” With Innokenty Smoktunovsky in the film “Beware of the Car.” 1966 Photo: RIA NOVOSTI

It took more than two months to get to the place by stage, half of the people died on the road during this time. And here is the timber industry enterprise. The prisoners there worked in logging, but Zhzhenov began to ask to work as a driver in an auto mechanic shop. He had no experience. He simply sat in a cell with the director of the road technical school, and he “taught” them, young guys, auto business. So dad became a driver. And the camp authorities respected him. The film “Fighters” was brought to a neighboring village, Georgy heard about it. I went to the head of the camp: “Allow me to meet with my wife.” - “With which wife?” He explained that Zhenya Golynchik, who starred in this film, is his wife and he himself is a former artist. “Let me go to a film screening so that I can at least see my wife on the screen...” They let him go, the boss even rejoiced: “Look who’s sitting with me!” Artist!"

In 1943, Zhzhenov’s term ended, but until the end of the war none of the repressed were released. They just extended the deadline. On top of that, Georgy was transferred to a gold mine, where he had to work with a pick and a shovel in ice water knee-deep 16 hours a day. My father recalled that he began to “get there”... And then the head of the concert crew, Konstantin Nikanorov, arrived at the mine. He was advised to watch the “artist Zhzhenov”. Konstantin Aleksandrovich remembered this show all his life. Before him appeared a typical prisoner with rough hands and a weather-beaten face, on which huge blue eyes burned with anguish and pain. Gorky Vaska Ashes! Dad began to read Chekhov’s “The Joke,” the finest psychological prose. Nikanorov was so amazed that he vowed to get this guy out of the camp. And he kept his oath. So Georgy first ended up in the concert brigade, and then in the Magadan Drama Theater, whose troupe consisted half of prisoners. Here people began to follow Zhzhenov, and he had fans, including among the camp authorities. And one day the wife of the head of the camp administration told him: “Congratulations on your liberation! The husband signed the order..."

After serving his sentence for two years, my father was released in March 1945. In Magadan, he married for the second time, to the “Japanese spy” Lydia Vorontsova. A Leningrader, she went through the same trials as him - and also survived. They had a daughter, Alena. On this day, the father decided to arrange a celebration, among others, he invited famous singer Vadim Kozin. He also served time in Magadan. There weren't enough dishes. Georgy Stepanovich went to a hardware store, bought all the chamber pots there, knocked off their handles - they set the table with them! This is how they lived... It seemed that the trials were over. Zhzhenov even took advantage of the help of Gerasimov, who remembered him and gave a recommendation to the Sverdlovsk film studio. Dad starred there in the film “Alitet Goes to the Mountains.” But then the Sverdlovsk Film Studio was reorganized, Zhzhenov had to look for work in other places. Meanwhile, people began to be re-imprisoned. Georgy Stepanovich recalled: “You ask the question: “How much?” - they answer: “Forever!” You ask the investigator: “For what?” - he says: “If I knew...”

Georgy Zhzhenov, having spent his entire youth in the camps, at the age of forty began new life. The films “Crew”, “The Fate of a Resident”, “Beware of the Car” made him a people's favorite. But to tell the truth - that he was in prison, dying of hunger, was beaten and tortured many times - the artist was able to tell the truth only shortly before his death, when he voluntarily went on a “raid” on places of detention.

As a child, Georgy Stepanovich was simply called Egorka. He was a “Petrograd punk,” a tomboy, who played football in the street day and night. I returned home only to quickly sip some cabbage soup - a huge saucepan always stood ready in the entryway. The mother had no time to feed a crowd of eight people! She married a widower who had “five mouths,” and he often drank and beat his mother. Only when Georgy and his older brother Boris grew up and fought back against their father did this stop.

In 1934, Sergei Kirov was killed, and Georgy Zhzhenov I didn't go to his funeral because I didn't have shoes. This was enough to get him arrested. After this, the whole family was deported to Kazakhstan, and Georgy remained in Leningrad. He was studying to be an actor, and he did not care about the threat of arrest. Georgiy believed that his brother “roared” out of stupidity.

On a summer night in 1938, when Zhzhenov was arrested, he was recorded under number 605, so many people were taken in one night... Many times, sitting in his cell, Zhzhenov reproached himself for how unfairly he treated Boris. They visited him in prison with his mother. Boris managed to hand over sheets of paper to his relatives, which described everything that was happening in prisons, the whole truth about the repressions. Zhzhenov didn’t believe it, burned the sheets, and lectured his brother: “Just work, and they’ll let you out!” Everything will be fine!" Now Zhzhenov felt firsthand everything that his brother described.

Having not slept for three days, exhausted from the beatings, he signed a slander against himself, as the investigators demanded. But the next day he came to his senses and abandoned his actions; it was not too late. No matter how much the investigators put pressure on him, there was no point.

Perhaps Zhzhenov was impressed by the suicide of his cellmate - he slandered his friends, and his conscience tormented him. After almost two years of interrogations and beatings, Zhzhenov, who never signed the slander against himself, was sentenced to five years in prison.

After changing several places, the young man ended up at the mines in the Magadan region. A remote place. There Zhzhenov was supposed to die in the first winter, because due to snowfall, transport stopped running and the mine was left without bread for many days. A real famine began. Dying from exhaustion, Georgy knew that ten kilometers from the camp a package was waiting for him from his mother, who had been looking for him in the camps for three years.

“I couldn’t think about anything else except about this package, I started hallucinating,” Zhzhenov later recalled in his memoirs. – I imagined mountains of sausage, cheese, butter, bread, tobacco...

Miraculously, Zhzhenov managed to persuade one of the “bosses” to take him with him to the place where the package was waiting. Ten kilometers on foot - through a blizzard, a blizzard, not a single soul around... This trip ended with unheard-of luck for Zhzhenov - a seemingly heartless “boss” took him to the place in a sled! Zhzhenov could neither forget nor comprehend this until the end of his life. And he gave the parcel, which had turned into “dry mixture,” to the guards and asked that the food be given out gradually. One day, before his eyes, a hungry man attacked the food and died immediately. Zhzhenov remembered this picture and since then has never lost his head. One day he and other prisoners were transported on a barge, they were given herring, but there was no water. The distraught people drank too much river water, and three hundred people died of dysentery. Zhzhenov remained alive because he showed restraint and did not take a sip!

When the war began, there could be no question of people like Zhzhenov going to the front. No matter how many petitions Georgy wrote to be enrolled in the penal battalion, they were not even considered. During these years, he mastered the profession of a driver, but he had to end his “career” in the camp as a grain cutter. This is a person who cuts bread into pieces for prisoners; such people were often attacked, killed, and bread distribution centers were robbed. But Zhzhenov is used to treating any work honestly.

“I didn’t steal a single gram of bread!” – he later recalled. “And it was so hard that even “in the wind” I walked with two or three knives tucked into my boot by the boot. They tried to attack me more than once.

Zhzhenov, probably fortunately for him, fell ill with jaundice. Due to illness, the artist was released from this position. But when his term came to an end, Georgy was called to the authorities and was shown a paper that his term had been extended. He realized that this would last forever, and lost heart. The cultural brigade that arrived at the camp, consisting of prisoners, flashed like a ray of light in the dark kingdom. Zhzhenov was enlisted in the brigade, and this is how he saved his life.

Georgy Stepanovich lived to be 90 years old. Shortly before his death, he visited prisons and places where former camps. He did not complain about the past, but even tried to find difficult situations and humor, and even some kind of camp justice.

There was only one question he could not answer: “For what?”

Reference

Georgy Zhzhenov was born in 1915. After school, he studied at a circus school to become an acrobat, where he was noticed by filmmakers. In 1935 he graduated from the Leningrad College of Performing Arts. Before his arrest, Zhzhenov managed to star in several films, including Chapaev.

After his release, Zhzhenov played at the Magadan Theater. He was rehabilitated in 1955, after which he immediately began actively acting in films.

Business cards Zhzhenova – commander in “Crew”, spy Tulyev in “The Fate of a Resident”, general in the film “Hot Snow”. Georgy Stepanovich passed away in 2005. The actor's camp story was filmed documentary“Russian Cross”, and in the book “From the Capercaillie to the Firebird” the actor himself spoke about what he had to experience.

Georgy Stepanovich Zhzhenov (March 9 (22), 1915, Petrograd - December 8, 2005, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian actor theater and cinema. People's Artist of the USSR (1980).

Georgy Zhzhenov was born on March 22, 1915 in Petrograd on Vasilyevsky Island. His parents Stepan Filippovich Zhzhenov and Maria Fedorovna Shchelkina came from poor peasant families in the Tver province. Stepan Zhzhonov moved to St. Petersburg as a child, where he began working for a fellow baker. He later married, but remained a widower and married a second time to a young orphan, Maria Shchelkina. By this time, he already had five children, and then there were children together. Georgy Zhzhonov recalled that their family lived poorly, and the more severe the need became, the more the father drank, drinking away everything that was in the house, often raising his hand against his wife. Georgy Zhzhonov’s mother was a kind, wise and loving person, and for Georgy she always remained “my beautiful Mother.”

Georgy Zhzhenov clearly remembered his biography from the age of 4, at which time he returned from the village where he was taken with his brother Boris because of the revolution. The next 22 years of Georgy’s life were spent on Vasilievsky Island, where the Zhzhenov family lived on the corner of First Line and Bolshoy Prospekt. In the spring of 1930, Georgy graduated from the 7th grade of the 204th Leningrad Labor School with a physics and mathematics focus, and in order to continue his studies in the 8th grade, he had to pass exams. However, young Georgy became interested in the circus, cinema and theater, and in 1930, having borrowed documents from his older brother Boris, he entered the acrobatic department of the Leningrad Variety and Circus College under the name Boris Zhzhenov. He subsequently confessed to his crime at the technical school and was forgiven.

A year later, Georgy Zhzhenov, together with fellow student Georges Smirnov, rehearsed a cascade eccentric act called “Chinese Table”, and began performing at the Leningrad Circus “Chapiteau” as a duet “2-Georges-2” in the genre of cascade acrobatics. During one of his performances, he was noticed by employees of the film group, who were selecting artists for a new film, and invited him to film at Lenfilm, offering main role tractor driver Pashka Vetrov in the film “The Hero’s Mistake.” Many years later, Zhzhenov joked about the title of his first film: “My whole life is complete mistake: hero, resident, and so on. Here... I got into cinema, became infected with it, exchanged the healthy smell of the playpen for the smell of acetone in the film studio pavilions.”

In 1931, Zhzhenov starred in an episode of the film “A Start to Life” (uncredited). Participation in filming changed Georgy's plans, and in 1932, leaving his circus career, Georgy became a student in the film actor department of the Leningrad Theater School.
At the theater school, Zhzhonov’s teacher was director Sergei Apolinarievich Gerasimov, and even before graduating from college in 1935, Zhzhonov managed to star in the films “ Crown Prince Republic", "Golden Lights", "Komsomolsk" and "Chapaev".

After the murder of S. M. Kirov, the elder brother Boris was convicted for not going to the funeral demonstration. The family was deported to Kazakhstan, Boris died in Vorkuta. Georgy Zhzhenov showed stubbornness, refused to be deported and was arrested, but at the request of S. A. Gerasimov, he was released and sent to the Lenfilm film studio. During the filming of the film “Komsomolsk” (1938), Georgy Zhzhenov traveled by train to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the train, he met an American diplomat who was traveling to Vladivostok to meet a business delegation. This acquaintance was noticed by film workers, which served as a reason for accusing Zhzhonov of espionage activities. On July 4, 1938, he was arrested on charges of espionage and sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps. Transported to Kolyma on November 5, 1939.

Georgy Zhzhenov met his first wife, Belarusian actress Zhenya Golynchik, while still studying. “When she was on her last date in transit in St. Petersburg, I told her: “Zhenya, don’t wait for me. More than ninety percent, I’ll die somewhere. In any case, you don’t need to make your life dependent on mine. You young. Thank you for everything, but live as you want. Let me not be the chains that remain on your conscience.” I met her when I returned from my first prison sentence. We saw that our lives had completely diverged,” Zhzhenov recalled.

Until 1943, Georgy Stepanovich was at the gold mines of Dalstroy, where he worked as a dispatcher in the garage of an excavator station. Sometimes he had to work as a driver. Soon his sentence was extended for another 21 months. On March 26, 1945, for good behavior and conscientious work, Zhzhonov was early released from the camp, and until December 1946 he worked at the Magadan Polar Drama Theater, where he met his second wife Lydia Vorontsova, who was arrested in 1935 in Leningrad “for relations with foreign sailors.” ”, and received 10 years of camps in Kolyma for this.

In June 1946, Lydia and Georgy had a daughter, Lena. Zhzhenov found work as an actor in the small town of Pavlovsk-on-Oka. Lydia was released only two years later. By then they family life upset. But the daughter Lena remained. And when Zhzhonov received a letter from the Sverdlovsk region from his wife: “I was arrested again, the child is in the distribution center orphanage", - rushed to save his daughter. He managed to transport Lenochka to his mother in Leningrad. Lena later became an artist-designer.

And soon he was arrested again. Zhzhenov spent six months in prison in Gorky, after which he was sent into exile in Norilsk. Georgy Stepanovich did not want to leave for the North, but, as it has now become known, it was Lydia Vorontsova who achieved his exile to Norilsk. So she tried to reunite the broken family. At first, Georgy and Lydia actually lived together in exile in Norilsk. But soon the actor began to live separately. Lydia Vorontsova met her second husband, Sergei Prokopyevich Tayozhny. After Vorontsova’s rehabilitation, they left for Riga.

In the Norilsk ITL (Norillag), Zhzhenov worked until 1953 at the Norilsk Polar Drama Theater, where he met I.M. Smoktunovsky and was his partner on stage. At a local club he mastered the camera and became the first in Norilsk to take color photographs. An unimaginable luxury at that time. “The old Norilsk residents still have traces of my activities,” recalled Georgy Zhzhonov. “Sometimes people even send me letters and include THOSE pictures of me.”

With my third wife - Irina Makhaeva, Georgy Zhzhenov met at a meeting of the troupe at the Norilsk Polar Theater in 1950. Irina Makhaeva was a freelance actress there. Marrying a prisoner at that time meant sharing his unenviable position with him. Irochka was 10 years younger than Georgy, but was not afraid of difficulties. It was she who achieved the release of Zhzhonov. After lifting the exile and rehabilitation on December 2, 1955, Georgy and Irina returned to Leningrad, where Irina officially became Zhzhonov’s wife and took his last name. In 1956 they gave birth to daughter - Marina, who later became a teacher.

At the age of 38, Zhzhonov began his professional life from scratch. He got a job as an actor at the Leningrad Regional Drama Theater and at the Lensovet Theater. There Zhzhonov met his fourth and last wife - Lydia Petrovna Malyukova. They had a daughter, Yulia, who currently works at the Mossovet Theater and teaches at VGIK.

Soon he again became a film actor at Lenfilm and began working in films, but his acting fate was quite difficult. For a long time He starred in supporting roles and in films that did not have much success with audiences. The actor’s most notable works of those years were his roles in the films “Corrected to Believe” and “The Night Guest.” Another hobby of Zhzhenov was football. He played in the Leningrad trade union team and, they say, played well. He was even offered to take up sports professionally, offering a choice - either football or cinema. Zhzhonov chose the latter.

In 1961, the film “Planet of Storms” directed by Pavel Klushantsev was released on the screens of the USSR, and immediately became a real hit. The appearance of the film coincided with Gagarin’s flight and the craze for astronautics, the conquest of the planets was seen just around the corner, and Klushantsev offered the viewer an educational and fascinating picture of how this could begin to happen in the near future. For Georgy Zhzhonov, working on the role in “Planet of Storms” became one of the first notable film roles after returning from the camps.

Georgy Zhzhenov first became famous after a small role in Eldar Ryazanov’s comedy “Beware of the Car,” in which he played a traffic inspector in 1966. The actor got into the character so accurately that his character was immediately remembered by the audience. Another bright and memorable work was the main role in the duology “The Path to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn”.

In 1968, Georgy Stepanovich moved to Moscow and began working at the Mossovet Theater. For for many years On the stage of this theater he played more than a hundred roles. In the same year of 1968, cinema came to finest hour Zhzhenov after the release of Veniamin Dorman’s adventure film “The Resident’s Mistake.” In 1970, the second film, “The Fate of the Resident,” was released. Twelve years later, Veniamin Dorman returned to the audience’s favorite characters, and in 1982 the third film, “Return of the Resident,” was released, and in 1986, the fourth film in the tetralogy, “The End of Operation Resident,” was released.

Over the years creative activity Georgy Zhzhenov played about 70 roles in films, films with his participation enjoyed popular love and became classics of Russian cinema. Georgy Stepanovich is the author of more than 10 books of memoirs, including about camp life in Kolyma and polar Norilsk: “From the Wood Grouse to the Firebird,” “Omchag Valley,” “Lived” and others. Zhzhonov loved life, which is why he probably did not age - he never looked his age. At the age of 90, he took his wife to the dacha and swam in the sea. “Lida, you and I are young,” he told her. “Just don’t make any sudden movements.”

IN recent years Georgy Zhzhenov played the only role in the play “On the Golden Lake” at the Mossovet Theater. In the “great play about two old men,” as Zhzhenov called it, he appeared on stage with People’s Artist of Russia Irina Kartasheva. After Zhzhonov’s death, she said: “I lost not only wonderful person and an actor, but also an amazing partner. Last time We played the play on October 3rd - it went wonderfully, the audience accepted it with all their hearts. It never occurred to me that Zhzhonov would never appear on stage again. He hid his illnesses and really didn’t like it when people asked about them. Georgy Stepanovich behaved well, was an amazingly straightforward and honest person - if he didn’t like something, he sometimes spoke about it quite sharply.”

3 weeks before his death, Georgy Zhzhenov fell unsuccessfully at home, after which he was diagnosed with a fractured femoral neck. He was brought to the Pirogov National Medical and Surgical Center, where the next day doctors performed surgery on the artist and installed a French endoprosthesis. As the orthopedic doctor Anton Serebryakov, who operated on the artist, said, the operation lasted only fifty minutes. The elderly artist was not given general anesthesia, but gentle spinal anesthesia - after all, Georgy Stepanovich turned 90 years old.

Sidenko Sergey. Portrait of G. S. Zhzhenov.

While still in intensive care, Georgy Zhzhenov, with the help of doctors and his wife, began to try to walk, for which he was fitted with a special walker. The doctors had no doubt that Georgy Stepanovich would definitely get back on his feet, but on December 4, 2004, Georgy Zhzhenov was again hospitalized with inflammation of the respiratory tract. After a thorough examination, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors did not inform him of the fatal diagnosis, but insisted on surgery. Perhaps this would help defeat the insidious disease and prolong the life of a wonderful actor. Doctors hoped that the actor would cope with the injury, but his lungs could not stand it. A hemorrhage occurred in the pleural cavity, and on December 8, 2005, at the 91st year of his life, Georgy Zhzhenov’s life was cut short.

The funeral service for the deceased took place on the morning of Saturday, December 10, in the Cathedral of the Presentation Vladimir icon Mother of God Sretensky Monastery. Farewell to Georgy Zhzhenov took place at the Mossovet Theater, after which the artist was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

In Moscow, on the house where G.S. Zhzhenov lived (Zoologicheskaya St., 12/2), a memorial plaque was installed in 2010.

In 2009, a documentary film “Georgy Zhzhonov. Agent of Hope."

In December 1934, Kirov was killed in Leningrad. Boris Zhzhenov, like other Leningrad State University students, was supposed to take part in the funeral procession. But he refused, since he did not have proper shoes to spend several hours in the cold... This was regarded as a hostile attitude towards Soviet power. Soon Boris was expelled from the university. He was later reinstated, but in December 1936 he was again summoned to the NKVD. He never returned from there, receiving seven years for “anti-Soviet activities.”

The Zhzhenov family was evicted from Leningrad. In addition to Georgy, his fellow filmmakers and Gerasimov himself stood up for him.

In the summer of 1938, Zhzhenov, together with a group of film actors, went to film in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the train they met an American diplomat who was traveling to Vladivostok as part of a delegation. Of course, fellow travelers were talking to each other. After the trip, the NKVD received a report about “contacts with a foreigner.” This plus the reputation of a relative of the “enemy of the people” was quite enough to accuse Zhzhonov of espionage. When Georgy returned to Leningrad, they came for him.

In the famous Leningrad prison "Crosses" Zhzhenov had to go through all the circles of hell. He was interrogated with passion - tortured, beaten, deprived of sleep... Others could not stand the bullying and confessed to the most absurd things. But the athletic, trained artist flatly refused to admit the charge of espionage. As a result, he was not shot, but given five years in the camps.

This is how Zhzhenov ended up in Kolyma, where he had to endure hunger, cold, exhausting labor, and the daily struggle for survival... During the war, almost no food was delivered to the Kolyma camps, and prisoners died in the hundreds.

In 1943, the head of a traveling acting propaganda team, Nikanorov, accidentally recognized a former film actor in a scab-covered goner from a penal camp at the Glukhar mine, and first achieved his transfer to his propaganda team, and then to the Magadan Musical Drama Theater, the troupe of which was almost entirely composed of prisoners.

In 1944, the actor’s prison term was coming to an end. However, he was summoned to the camp authorities and asked to sign a resolution for an additional term - another 21 months in the camps.

Lived a long life. Not only fame and success fell to his lot, but also serious trials. So, in the era Stalin's repressions he was twice convicted on trumped-up charges.

Circus and cinema

Georgy Stepanovich Zhzhenov was born in March 1915 in Petrograd, in the family of a baker. Despite the fact that the family was poor, the children were drawn to study. Georgy's older brother Boris entered the university in the early 30s, and Georgy himself, after graduating from an eight-year school with a physics and mathematics degree, was admitted to the acrobatic department variety and circus school. Soon, together with one of his fellow students, his namesake, he began performing in the arena of the Leningrad Circus in the acrobatic duet “2-Georges-2”.

It was at the circus that Lenfilm employees saw him. The young man received the main role in the film “The Hero's Mistake” (1932). After that, leaving the circus, Zhzhenov entered the Leningrad College of Performing Arts on the course of Sergei Gerasimov. He starred in several films, including the legendary Chapaev.

Walking through torment

In December 1934, Kirov was killed in Leningrad. Boris Zhzhenov, like other Leningrad State University students, was supposed to take part in the funeral procession. But he refused, since he did not have proper shoes to spend several hours in the cold... This was regarded as a hostile attitude towards Soviet power. Soon Boris was expelled from the university. He was later reinstated, but in December 1936 he was again summoned to the NKVD. He never returned from there, receiving seven years for “anti-Soviet activities.”

The Zhzhenov family was evicted from Leningrad. In addition to Georgy, his fellow filmmakers and Gerasimov himself stood up for him.

In the summer of 1938, Zhzhenov, together with a group of film actors, went to film in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On the train they met an American diplomat who was traveling to Vladivostok as part of a delegation. Of course, fellow travelers were talking to each other. After the trip, the NKVD received a report about “contacts with a foreigner.” This plus the reputation of a relative of the “enemy of the people” was quite enough to accuse Zhzhonov of espionage. When Georgy returned to Leningrad, they came for him.

In the famous Leningrad prison "Crosses" Zhzhenov had to go through all the circles of hell. He was interrogated with passion - tortured, beaten, deprived of sleep... Others could not stand the bullying and confessed to the most absurd things. But the athletic, trained artist flatly refused to admit the charge of espionage. As a result, he was not shot, but given five years in the camps.

This is how Zhzhenov ended up in Kolyma, where he had to endure hunger, cold, exhausting labor, and the daily struggle for survival... During the war, almost no food was delivered to the Kolyma camps, and prisoners died in the hundreds.

In 1943, the head of a traveling acting propaganda team, Nikanorov, accidentally recognized a former film actor in a scab-covered goner from a penal camp at the Glukhar mine, and first achieved his transfer to his propaganda team, and then to the Magadan Musical Drama Theater, the troupe of which was almost entirely composed of prisoners.

In 1944, the actor’s prison term was coming to an end. However, he was summoned to the camp authorities and asked to sign a resolution for an additional period - another 21 months in the camps.

Second try

In 1945, Zhzhenov was finally released, and thanks to Gerasimov, he found work at the Sverdlovsk film studio, where he starred in the film “Alitet Goes to the Mountains” - about Soviet Chukotka. But in 1949, the actor was arrested again. This time, however, he was sentenced not to the camps, but to exile in Norilsk. There he got a job at the local drama theater named after Mayakovsky, where he played together with Innokenty Smoktunovsky, who went to Siberia to sit out time of troubles- he feared arrest for being captured by the Germans in 1943.

In Norilsk, Zhzhenov tried to start a family with actress Irina Makhaeva. For him, this was already his third marriage - the previous two were interrupted by arrests... Later they had a daughter, Marina.

Only in 1955, having been completely rehabilitated, was the actor able to return to Leningrad. At first he worked in the regional drama theater, but already in 1956 he began acting in Lenfilm. National fame came to him in the late 60s - early 70s after filming the films “Resident Error” and “Fate

resident." The actor was awarded many state awards, and in 2005 the whole country celebrated the 90th birthday of Georgy Zhzhonov - people's artist and a former prisoner.