Yuri Chulyukin

Yuri Stepanovich Chulyukin (; 9 November 1929 — 7 March 1987) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, actor and songwriter best known for comedy movies. He became a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1979. Biography Chulyukin was born in Moscow to a Bolshoi Theatre director. His mother studied under the famous actor Mikhail Astangov (born Ruzhnikov), and Chulyukin bore a striking resemblance to him which led to speculations inside the artistic circles; according to Chulyukin's first wife Natalya Kustinskaya, this topic was tabooed inside his family. He studied for an artist at the Central Children's Theatre and headed the amateur theatre at the Moscow Factory of Cinematographic Equipment. In 1956 he graduated from VGIK where he studied film directing under Grigory Alexandrov and Mikhail Chiaureli; he worked briefly in television and made around three dozen documentaries. In 1958 he started working at Mosfilm and directed his first feature comedy The Unamenables, which turned into one of the 1959 box office leaders (10th place with 31.8 million viewers) and gained the main prize at the 1960 All-Union Film Festival. He cast the leading actress Nadezhda Rumyantseva in his next comedy The Girls which became an even bigger success: with 34.8 million viewers it became the 5th most popular Soviet movie of 1961; for this role Rumyantseva was named the best actress at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in 1962.