Seriously funny man

He saved existence as best he could: with camaraderie, charm, the capacity for joy. Serving art

- Is there a script? - he said as he walked, kissing and bowing to the cloud of people crowded into the Vakhtangov art cafe along the way. For Yuri Butusov’s sixtieth birthday, artists from all the theaters where Butusov staged came and went: the Satyriconists, the Moscow Art Theater, the Vakhtangov theater themselves, from the Pushkin Theater, from the Lensovet Theater... The hall was full of stars, but the hero of the day himself wished: Zolotovitsky would conduct well!

- There is no script! - we admitted.

He paused for a moment. But looking into our panicked faces, I immediately decided:

- Let's improvise!

Well, in that last Butusov holiday, there was a triumph of real theater, freedom, artistry, wit.

Who could have known then that both the hero of the evening and his friend-presenter were given exactly sixty-four...

Igor Zolotovitsky knew how to hold an audience like no one else. He had a rare gift for precise intonation. He knew how to spend himself generously.

How the students loved him! And he invariably “infected” them - with passion for the craft, love for the stage and life. He tried to protect from all evil. And confront him with a smile.

...When Inna Natanovna Solovyova called on the newly appointed rector of the Moscow Art Theater School to talk about the details and circumstances of her funeral (the great historian of the Art Theater conducted this conversation successively, first with Oleg Tabakov, then with Anatoly Smelyansky), Zolotovitsky did not resist. And he immediately got down to business in a gentle and businesslike manner:

- Where do we want to go?

Solovyova immediately stopped being nervous and calmly, not without humor, stated her will.

...At the master class of the entire amazing creative family - Vera Kharybina, Alexey and Sasha Zolotovitsky as part of the “Lessons in Directing” festival, Igor Zolotovitsky, star, rector, favorite of the public, said the least: “Why should I dominate, I’ll have time!”

He really did it all.

Dozens of roles, students, friends, the saved Actor's House, a decent life at the Moscow Art Theater School.

The last significant role at the Moscow Art Theater was Kalabushkin in Nikolai Roshchin’s play based on Erdman’s play “The Suicide.” The genre is difficult - black comedy, but he coped masterfully. His inspired rogue in stockings with elastic bands was hilarious and solemnly pathetic, and there was an almost childlike spontaneity to the game. And in general, Zolotovitsky - and this was his real strength - in any role he remained a “childish” person. His acting range had no limits: from the image of the narrator in the play about Winnie the Pooh to the menacingly authentic gypsy baron in the recent series.

But perhaps no less significant work of Igor Yakovlevich Zolotovitsky was his natural, but deliberate behavior in life.

He was a seriously cheerful person and saved existence as best he could: with camaraderie, charm, and the capacity for joy. Serving art.

And he knew exactly how to behave in the most tragic “suggested circumstances.” We talked to him on the phone several times this fall. He didn't change his intonation...

Farewell on January 17 at 10 at the Moscow Art Theater.