A sea of ​​telephone blood

Memory of Valentine Gaft

One of the artists beloved by the audience Valentin Gaft wrote evil epigrams and delicate lyrical poems all his life. In the epigrams, he was confident and willingly read them:

On yourself

Gaft had many times many
And in the epigrams he ate alive.
He filled his hand in this matter,
And the rest we will score.

In verses was much less.

- Read at least one poem, Valentin Iosifovich!

- Which? Light, serious, funny - what do you want? I have a lot of poems about animals. Choose the beast, I will read you about him. About the tiger? Fine.

And he began to read, worried like a freshman, playing, pedaling:

If his ancestors knew,
What a moat, water, behind a grid
Their rod is sprayed as a rare
Approaching the scraps.

What is his children in the pajamas
That they give them sweets,
That strips, like notes -
Shadows of a black terrible cage.

Many years ago, “Contemporary” came with touring in Tallinn. I called Valentina Gaft (which I had never met before) and agreed that I would make an interview with him for the newspaper. It was agreed that before leaving the house, just in case, I would call him again. I'm calling. Gaft picks up the phone and suddenly begins to philosophize:

-Yes, yes, I remember, Elena, we agreed on the meeting, but I thought about it, do we need this meeting with you? What can we tell each other about life for this hour? What will change in the world from the fact that I will utter words, you will utter words ... Another interview - you, I have ...

- Let me! - I only managed to pronounce in response, when suddenly a terrible cry of pain and horror rang out on the other side of the telephone tube, and then the completely changed Gaft's voice threw, dying: dying:

-Oh! Ah! I broke a glass. I stepped barefoot on the fragments of glass! I am bleeding!

"A sea of ​​blood, I drown in my own blood, I am weakened ... Farewell, Elena, do not be angry."

The connection was interrupted, I admit, confused. If Gaft is bleeding in a foreign city, in a foreign country, then you probably need to immediately go to it and help him, and if he is just lazy to give an interview (which is more likely), then you need to leave it alone.

And I must say that these days I was visiting Mikhail Eligulashvili - then an unusually popular correspondent for the Freedom radio station in Georgia; He became famous for fearless reports directly from the theater of military operations of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict; His objectivity was so unconditional that when the suicide bombers captured hostages in the Tbilisi prison, Misha was the only person with whom they agreed to enter into negotiations. I asked Misha to call Gaft and make sure that he was in good health and, if Gaft is amiable, then ask about the interview, to say that Misha had specially flew from Georgia, threw, so to speak, the theater of military operations to talk for “freedom” with a great artist of another theater.

Valentin Gaft was shocked by his popularity - the Georgian correspondent of "Freedom" specially flew to Tallinn to make an interview with him?! Of course, he will be happy to see him! Moreover, Gaft monitors the development of events in Abkhazia exclusively on the radio reports of Mikhail Eligulashvili. Misha added that only he would come not alone, but accompanied by his aunt, who stopped in Tallinn, because one does not dare to go, is afraid to get lost. Gaft agreed with this.

All the way to the theater, Misha sawed me:

- I don’t like the theater, I rarely watch a movie, I don’t remember any films and performances with Gaft. In general, I don’t remember the gaffeta. I came to rest, and you draw me into some wild story.

“Bear,” I say, “do not be angry.” You will start the conversation like this: “Valentin Iosifovich, for twenty -five years you have been playing in a“ contemporary ”, never wanted to escape? And then I will enter, and everything will be fine.

- In "Contemporary", are you sure?

- Sure. Ask, most importantly, about the "contemporary" and do not think about anything else.

They came. Gaft was completely healthy.

He hugged Misha and expressed gratitude to him for the beautiful reports. Misha had to start an interview. He turned on the recorder, cleared his throat and began:

- Valentin Iosifovich, you have been playing in Satire for twenty -five years ...

- I? In Satire? Cried Gaft.

“Sorry,” Misha blushed, “tired of the road ... You have been playing Taganka for twenty -five years ...

- How on Taganka?! - There was simply no face on Gaft.

- And where? - Misha prayed.

And then, because of the Mishina, I appeared:

- Valentin Iosifovich, of course, we all know about your life in a “contemporary”, Misha dreamed about this meeting for so long that he was simply confused. The boy did not sleep for three days ... Let me ask you ... And the interview went through the usual rails.

In the evening we met at a banquet, and Gaft finally exposed our draw. But he was not angry. We exchanged bloody stories. And both sides turned out well.

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Marina Tokareva: Gaft embodied the authenticity of male relations with life. Remember it as follows: photo

... When Gaft wrote or talked about the fact that he really loved, he involuntarily said goodbye to all excessiveness and exaggeration. In the book “The Garden of Forgotten Memories”, for example, he tells about the death of his friend Oleg Dahl: the news of the death of Dahl caught Gaft on the operating table. Gaft did a complex operation - introduced into the spine, in the back of the brain needle; Hearing the terrible news, Gaft got up from the operating table, went to the window, opened it and began to breathe frosty air so as not to go crazy and not die of peace of mind. It would seem that everything is ridiculous here, but Gaft does not even seek beliefs in the text, he is convincingly playing! And when you read this, you believe every word by his emotional impeccability.

For Gaft, life after the stage was like life after death.

- The artist must disappear after the performance. Influence, and then disappear. He should not bow, smile, take flowers.

“If an artist can touch, then magic is destroyed. And the worst when the artist remains to drink champagne with his fans ... "

Once I came in Moscow to meet Sergey Yursky at the Mossovet Theater; Valentine Gaft walked along the corridors, a buffet, a lobby and stopped all his friends to read a new epigram. It was quite evil in it about Mikhail Zhvanetskoye, who then stole a very expensive car. Gaft wrote that thieves helped Zhvanetsky recall: a satirist, artist, artist should be more victorious ...

The bandits, therefore, are more visible -
The satirist should be poorer!

By the way, he said about his attitude to money remarkably:

“I am a poor man, but I never faced the need to do something for the sake of money.” I, apparently, is a limited person, I do not need anymore than I have. I would not know how to deal with the house, with a summer house, with a luxurious machine. I grew up in a communal apartment, and I never had a need to live differently. And I would never go into politics, because in politics the artist becomes less than he is. He becomes a joke on the rostrum, not on stage. I need very little - books, a table on which there is vodka and a good snack prepared by his wife, friends with whom we talk slowly and warmth, theater, scene, viewer, handle and paper to write ...

He played Professor Higgins in Pygmalion Bernard show. This, in my opinion, is one of the best performances in the history of “Contemporary”. He proves that Bernard Show in Pygmalion did not want to say that "and peasant women know how to love." The flower man Eliza Dutylitetle easily enters the aristocratic society from the fact that the aristocracy is blowing there. Professor Higgins, who is teaching Eliza, perfect boor, brought up by an unusually scrupulous in matters of etiquette, Mrs. Higgins, who, in turn, feels comfortably exclusively in the society of a drunken Dutylittle garbage man.

Professor Higgins performed by Gaft - rude with an aristocratic appearance, to which everything is allowed.

“Is there something from you from such a professor Higgins?” I asked then.

- All the roles that I played are written about me. If not about me, then I will not play.

( continues ), of course, I am not so enriched that I have absolutely everything. But some droplets of fate will certainly respond, gather inside, and then it all depends on imagination, fantasy, energy. You need to pick something in yourself and will open.

Valentin Gaft always played. Loner. In Soviet films, he most often played thieves in law, criminals, charming recidivists, forcing the unfortunate spectators to always sympathize with the criminal, and not a victim or investigator. The power of his talent was especially visible when he competed with someone young, with some rising star and won. Like in the film "Anchor, still anchor!" Petra Todorovsky, where, from him, the old colonel, a beloved of a young guy performed by Evgeny Mironov leaves him. The character of Gaft ends with himself, and when he leaves the world, it turns out that the world itself fell apart ...

- Times are changing, and the audience change with them?

“No,” he answered, “the viewer is always the same everywhere.” Good. And in America, and in Germany, and in Italy, and in Russia. When a person hurts, when he is alone, when he is happy or dies, this is understandable to everyone. And in any language. When good American artists play, it seems to me that they play Russian ...

He has not only epigrams about himself, but also poems. True, he himself did not call them verses - "these are meek studies, exercises for fantasy, attention." And yet:

Black

On the scene of the block, everything is fatal
The trouble should have happened
I crossed the border of secrets
You have to pay for this.

When they come in the midst of the game
Seven, three, ace - do not gasp!
Invisible axes
Always hang over our plane.

There is a riddle - there are no solutions,
I stepped on the crown of the pits
Where blood washes off the hands of Macbeth
And the peak lady is naughty.

And he commented on:

-You know, as soon as I write a poem, I will immediately read some stunning verses of one of my favorite poets and quit write. At least for a while.

Tallinn