Hmm yes perfect

spiritcc:

Here are some extracts from Vasily Livanov’s book, where one chapter is dedicated to his friend Vitaly Solomin. This is the book where that famous quote also comes from. 

Enjoy the pain:

“It happens so that when someone passes away, we customarily treat his actions and related events as the thing of the past. But everything about my beloved closest friend and partner Vitaly Solomin has become a part of my way of life, my conscience, so for me it will become the thing of the past only when I pass away too.
We used to call him Vitasha - that’s how his wife addressed him. Vitaly Solomin always gave various interviews to the press and on TV throughout years of our friendship. These interviews are in the papers, journals, VHS - I keep most of them in my house. Vitasha spoke about me quite often, about our relations and the shared work that was born from our happy friendship. But let him speak himself:

“Actually, Vasily Borisovich and I got acquainted during auditions. He’s an open person, we became close friends. Livanov is a man of big taste and I trust him. It’s rare to find a person who can give precise comments on your work: not just “I like/don’t like it”, any person can do that…But there are few who say exactly why they did or didn’t like a particular work. It’s very important to me. With Livanov’s great memory and taste, you can consult him on many topics. I have an impression that he knows and remembers everything.“

In our first days of acquaintance, I gifted Vitasha the "Youth” journal with “My Beloved Clown” in it [a story written by Livanov]. Soon Solomin gave me his actor booklet with a signature: “Dear Vasya! I’m glad I met you. I’ve learnt about you the most from your beautiful story. Yours respectfully. Vitaly. 14/VII, year 79.”

The filming of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson was all up and running when Vitasha came up to me with a sudden proposition: to bring my story he came to love on stage. “And I will set it up and play the main role”, he promised. It came to life: I wrote it out, he staged the play where he played Sergey Sinitsyn the clown. That’s what he said about our work: “The play feels so much like Livanov. He is a person that did not part with his childhood. Although, that edgy character - it can do many things.”

It was a great pleasure for me to make Vitasha laugh.
Usually concentrated and seemingly composed, he would ignite suddenly, so to say, blind me with his charming smile, and if he laughed, then he laughed with all his strength, to tears, contagiously. After the play’s premiere I called him:
“There’s a big armchair in your house, right?”
“Well, yes”, Vitasha replied, “Why?”
“Can you bring it to the Malyi Theatre this moment? I really need it.”
“…Why?”
“Want to chill next to Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovky” [a classic Russian playwright]
It’s a pity we spoke on the phone and I couldn’t see how hard he laughed. In the memoirs “Vitaly Solomin”, his youngest daughter remembers: “Vasya Livanov could make dad laugh even when he was pretty grim. A sudden call - and I can already hear dad laugh”. 

Our families were friends: our wives Lena and Masha were friends, both artists, our children were friends: his daughter Nastya and my son Boris. In 1984 we had additions to our families. Two weeks apart, we had our second son Nikolay, and Solomins had their second daughter Elizaveta. Common friends and even some good friends would ask us seriously, “Were you two in kahoots?”. Vitasha and I made a game out of this: we’d play all mysterious, hide our eyes, smile…To reply “Yes we were” were silly, try to assure them otherwise - even sillier. But the question somehow made us happy.
One time Vitasha gave an interview on TV and passed me a VHS of it. There were saved his words about our house that didn’t make it into the TV version: “You arrive to their house outside the city - Lenochka, Vasya’s wife, a very talented artist…she’d prepare food, and everything would be so tasty, in excess…and everything was so casual. One time we sat at the table and I didn’t say a word for the next five hours straight - I only laughed. Livanov knows so many stories - that a God’s gift - you can listen to them forever. Their house sucks you in so much when you get there: a story is invented, and something funny is told, and Vasya observes someone and makes a whole anecdote out of it…There are discussions about everything in the world…Not rumors! I would’ve spent days there - that’s some house”. 

When we auditioned and I realised he will be Watson for sure (it was clear from his level of mastery), my first goal was to find a way to get close with him. You need to be friends in life to portray this mystery on screen called friendship. It appeared that we had many similarities. The most important was that we matched perfectly in our visions of art, likes and dislikes. It was the basis of our friendship, especially for Vitasha, he was very picky. We came to understand each other, we treasured each other. To me, the best evidence of our great relations expressed in our trips: we spent seven years travelling from Moscow to St.-Petersburg and back, more often in a single cab. And I noticed that we pulled off great silence. We didn’t have to talk constantly, not at all. That silence carried mutual support. Unity. It brought peace in the hurricane of work and life.
Vitasha always avoided injustice, familiarity, tactless behaviour. That’s why many considered him secretive. It’s not like he kept people at a distance on purpose. It happened naturally with people that he didn’t want to get close to, because of the aforementioned reasons. And the ones Solomin considered arrogant felt that. I know, there was such an opinion about him. It is really far away from the truth. If you wanted to break into his world, you had to share a lot of his views. Love art truly, realise what this job means - he used to think about it a lot. Obviously - success, that’s very important. But I think that the success on the outside didn’t mean as much for Solomin as his own personal value of what he did for art. That value was not pretentious, not pleasing for oneself: it was right. I think that he treated himself very cruelly. The bar was always very high. Movies, the stage alongside with acting, teaching that he loved with all his heart…It was beyond his abilities, in the last days he took on too much work. I don’t know, maybe it was a feeling: to manage to do everything now, when there’s time…An unstoppable desire to improve…The height of his directing work, not even mentioning acting, became “Krechinsky’s Wedding”. A superb and powerful control over the form, the highest performing level, all combined into one. He enchanted the entire play, and played Krechinsky as if it was his last role ever. That’s how it turned out in the end - the role was his last.
I’ve seen all of his plays, he used to invite me to final rehearsals, common rehearsals, university exams where he used to teach. He trusted me and valued my opinion. He considered me his lucky charm. He said: “Everything we do together comes out great”. He trusted me with all sorts of personal matters. We’d travel with our wives across Italy with the Malyi Theatre. Then go back home on a ship, in a cabin with no windows. You’d have to be really good friends in order not to start fighting when you’re travelling in a cabin such as that with four beds two stories high. I think you can test astronauts on their physiological comparability like this. They say perfect friendship doesn’t exist. But we had it. The most perfect one. 

One tape was saved, filmed by one of our friends in my house on the day of my 60th birthday. Vitasha says a toast to me: “You burst into my life, very determined and forever! But then I realised that near me, there’s a person that I can entrust even my life to - theater life, and personal life for that matter…Also, you praise me more than others (laughs). I love your family. I want you to live long. Because I need you so much.”

And I need you too, so much, Vitasha. Always. Even when you are no longer here.”