Happy 85th Birthday Leonid Bronevoy

Leonid Sergeyevich Bronevoy was born on December 17, 1928 in the city of Kiev to the Jewish family of Solomon Iosifovich Bronevoy and Bella Lvovna Bronevaya. In childhood he learned to play the violin at the 10-year musical school at the Kiev Conservatory. His teacher was the famous Kiev master, professor David Solomonovich Berthier.

 
Bronevoy’s father although a confectioner by trade became involved in politics and became a member of the KGB. Eventually he was arrested in 1936, sentenced to five years in prison but his jail sentence was extended and he was finally released in 1946. The family then lived in exile. His wife divorced him and changed Leonid’s middle name just “S”. As an “enemy family, of the people” the family was sent to live in the city of Kirov in the region of Malmyzh.
 
In 1941, the family was allowed to return to Kiev, but World War II had begun and they were evacuated to the city of Shymkent Kazakh USSR, where LS Bronevoj studied in high school and began to work independently.
 
In 1950 Leonid graduated from the Tashkent Theatrical Art Institute named by Ostrovsky. After his graduation in he worked in Magnitogorsk and Orenburg drama theaters.
 
In 1953, Leonid took a chance and went to Moscow where he was able to immediately enter the third year of Moscow Art Theatre School and successfully finished in 1955. After finishing the School-Studio Leonid left Moscow and became a member of the Grozny Drama Theatre. Then the Irkutsk Drama Theater and the Voronezh State Academic Drama Theatre.
 
From 1962 to 1988 he was the leading actor of the Moscow Drama Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. Since 1988 he was part of the Moscow theater Lenkom.

He received nationwide popularity after playing the role of 45-year-old Muller role in the TV series "Seventeen Moments of Spring". He created the image of the Gestapo chief who was not a primitive, sadistic head-cracker as the Gestapo is often portrayed in Soviet films, but a normal person with a sense of humor with simple manners and not immersed in the attitude to the official ideology, but an intelligent, skilled professional and a dangerous enemy. That image became striking, memorable, provocative and he even received respect and sympathy. Many lines made on television by the Mueller character became popular expressions.

 
Another equally popular character of Bronevoy was the Doctor from the film "Formula of Love". An elderly experienced man, for which nothing surprises him in the World, nothing that could shake his confidence in the correctness of his views on life. Many phrases the Doctor pronounced with the Bronevoy's intonation, became popular among the people.
 
In subsequent years the actor has played more than twenty film roles. One of his latest roles being that of the old actor in Zhuravlev's film, "Simple Things", for which he received the "Nick" in March of 2008. Bronevoy appeared as Peter Damphy in his only Euro-western “Armed and Dangerous” (1977).
 
Today we celebrate Leonid Bronevoy’s 85^th birthday.