Georgy Millyar – best Baba Yaga

Georgy Millyar was a prominent Soviet and Russian film and theater actor, People’s Artist of the RSFSR.
The boy was born on November 7, 1903 in Moscow into a family of French engineer, who came to work in Russia, and daughter of an Irkutsk gold miner Elizaveta Zhuravleva. However, the father died in 1906 in Yalta, when the boy was only three years old. Before the First World War the widow moved from Moscow to Gelendzhik. After 1917, the family was left without relatives and without money. Their flat in Moscow and house in Gelendzhik were confiscated.
Georgy worked in the theater as a property man, but he dreamed of the stage and learned every role.
Actor’s debut took place in the play Cinderella. The actress, who played the title role, became ill and Millyar replaced her. So in 1920 his acting career began.

In 1924, he was already a well-known provincial actor and entered the Moscow Theater of the Revolution (now Mayakovsky Theatre). Millyar acted in many performances. But in 1941 he left the theater. Georgy met Alexander Rou, master of children’s cinema. Director-storyteller and Millyar became friends and their friendship lasted more than three decades.
Their first film was By Pike, about Emelya the Fool, princess Nesmeyana and Pike, speaking in a human voice, and other miracles. In this film Millyar played the role of Tsar Pea, and the viewers saw absurd, evil fool, dressed in his tsar robes.
Millyar’s unique voice suited for playing the roles of fabulous villains, primarily Baba Yaga, Koschei the Deathless, Marine Monsters, etc. To tell the truth, Millyar became the most fabulous of all the artists on the planet.
In 16 films directed by Rou the actor had played about 30 roles. Millyar jokingly said that he was the official representative of the evil forces in the cinema.
You know, Georgy played more than thirty big roles, took part in dubbing of seventy films and voiced hundred cartoons.

Actually, Millyar’s wife became his neighbor Maria. He was 65 years old, and she was 60. The woman was very surprised: “Georgy Franzevich! I do not need a man!” Millyar joked: “I’m not a man. I am Baba Yaga”.
Georgy Franzevich lived a long happy life. Yes, happy, despite the fact that for a long time he lived in a communal apartment and got his own flat only at the age of 80, despite the fact that he didn’t save money to buy neither the cottage nor the car, despite the fact that he officially became People’s Artist only at the age of 85. But the actor was surrounded by a huge love of people.

Shortly before his death, he wrote, “appeared at the beginning of the century and will leave at the end of it …” Millyar died on June 4, 1993 and was buried in Moscow.
In 2003 a documentary movie about Georgy was filmed – Millyar: In Fairy Tale And In Life.
“And, probably, it would be great, at the end of the way, finally play Suvorov and then easy to leave.”
Source: doseng.org

Georgy Millyar – best Baba Yaga