Savely Kramarov

Biography

Savely Kramarov (Moscow, 1934 - San Francisco, 1995) was a Russian-American actor and comedian. In the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the most popular faces of Soviet cinema, appearing in more than forty films, and after emigrating to the United States in 1981 he worked mainly in supporting roles playing Russian characters. His importance lies in the way his cross-eyed, goofy screen persona became a kind of ironic refuge within Soviet society.

His childhood was shaped by Stalinist repression. His father, a Moscow lawyer, was sentenced to eight years in the Gulag after defending his clients too vigorously, and his mother died before the sentence ended, leaving Savely largely an orphan who grew up in poverty with relatives. He hoped to follow his father into law, but the family's background closed that door, and he ended up at a technical forestry school. Around that time he began acting, first on stage and then in film, where his first notable role came in They Were Nineteen (1960). His comic image was consolidated in adventure comedies and satires such as The Elusive Avengers, The Twelve Chairs and Gentlemen of Fortune, where directors valued his reliable, exaggerated physical style.

In 1979 he applied to emigrate, and the refusal effectively ended his career in the Soviet Union, where his films were withdrawn and his name removed from the credits. After a press campaign abroad and a letter to President Ronald Reagan, he was allowed to leave in 1981 and settled in the United States. His most visible American role was in Moscow on the Hudson, alongside Robin Williams. He returned to Russia only once, in 1992. He died in 1995 after complications following surgery for a bowel tumour. Today he is remembered as one of the most beloved figures of Soviet screen comedy.

Key films

• Gentlemen of Fortune (1971), as a con man with a crooked-eyed look under Leonid Gaidai's direction
• Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future (1973), in one of his best-known Soviet comedies
• The Twelve Chairs (1971), an adaptation of the satirical novel by Ilf and Petrov
• The Elusive Avengers (1967), one of his early major comic adventures
• Moscow on the Hudson (1984), in which he plays a Soviet agent opposite Robin Williams
• 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), in a supporting role in the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey