| Leonid Bronevoy | |
| Birth Name: | Leonid Sergeyevich Bronevoy |
| Birth Date: | 17 December 1928 |
| Birth Place: | Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR |
| Death Place: | Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality: | USSR (1928–1991) Russian (1991–2017) |
| Years Active: | 1950–2017 |
Leonid Sergeyevich Bronevoy (Russian: Леони́д Серге́евич Бронево́й; December 17, 1928 – December 9, 2017[1]) was a Soviet and Russian actor. Though primarily a stage actor in the Lenkom Theatre, Bronevoy also made occasional appearances in films. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1987 and won the Nika Award in March 2008.
Bronevoy was born in Kyiv on December 17,[2] [3] 1928, into the Jewish family of Solomon Iosifovich Bronevoy (who changed his family name from Faktorovich) and Bella Lvovna Bronevaya. In his childhood, he learned to play violin under the instruction of Kyiv Conservatory professor David Solomonovich Berthier.[4]
His father, Solomon Bronevoy, came from the family of a confectioner from Odessa and had participated in the Russian Civil War. From 1920 to 1923, he worked at the State Political Directorate and completed his legal education in Kyiv, where he met Bella Bronevaya, a student in the economics department. Solomon Bronevoy worked at the Institute of National Economy until his dismissal on Trotskyism charges. In 1928, before the birth of his son, Solomon got a job in the Kyiv District economic department of the Prosecutor General's Office, with the help of his elder brother Alexander Iosifovich Bronevoy. Later, Solomon Iosifovich was sent to Ivanovo. In 1933 he was awarded the Order of the Red Star, and in 1934, he was appointed director of the sixth Department in the USSR's People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). In 1935, he was dismissed from the NKVD and was appointed chief of Kyiv's "culture and park recreation."
On September 13, 1936, Solomon was arrested, and on March 9, 1937, he was sentenced to five years in prison (after the extension of the term, he was released in 1946). Solomon's wife divorced him and changed their son's patronym to "Sergeyevich", but that did not help. As a "family of an enemy of the people", she and her son Leonid were sent into exile in Malmyzh.
In 1941, the family was allowed to return to Kyiv, but due to World War II, they were evacuated to the city of Chimkent, Kazakh SSR, where Leonid Bronevoy attended high school and began to work independently.
In 1950, Leonid graduated from the Alexander Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatrical Art Institute. After his graduation in 1950, he worked in Magnitogorsk and Orenburg drama theatres.
In 1953, Leonid went to Moscow where he was able to immediately enter the third year of the Moscow Art Theater School (class of A.M. Karev) and successfully completed it in 1955. After completing theatre school, Leonid left Moscow and was admitted into the Grozny Drama Theatre. He acted at the Irkutsk, and Voronezh .
From 1962 to 1988, he was the leading actor in the . Starting in 1988 he performed in Moscow at the Lenkom Theatre.
Bronevoy achieved star status in the USSR after playing the role of Heinrich Müller in the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring. Despite lacking a physical resemblance to the historical chief of Gestapo, his portrayal became iconic due to his natural charisma and sense of humor.
Bronevoy's equally popular characters include the role of the Doctor in the comedy Formula of Love and that of the Duke of Hanover in The Very Same Munchhausen.
Bronevoy subsequently played over 20 roles in films. The last was the role of an old actor in Simple Things, for which he received the Nika Award in March 2008.
His name appeared on a petition against the Russian annexation of Crimea. However, he told TASS that his name was placed without his permission, adding that he supported Vladimir Putin and Russian actions in Crimea.[5]
He died at his home on 9 December 2017, at age 88.[1]