Archil Gomiashvili was born on March 23, 1926, in Chiatura, Soviet Georgia. His father, an
Institute of Red Professors graduate, was the
Donbas miners'
trade-union leader, when in the years of the
Great Purge he was arrested, to be freed only in 1944. Having spent two years in the Tbilisi Academy of Arts' school, Archil Gomiashvili joined the
Moscow Art Theatre's college-studio but had to leave Moscow in 1948 after an incident involving a fistfight. In 1958 he moved to
Poti to join the Eristavi Theatre's troupe, then returned to
Tbilisi as a member of the Russian Griboyedov Theatre. Gomiashvili debuted on the big screen in 1957, playing Mantasherov in
Personally Known, the first film of the
Kamo trilogy. In 1961 he appeared in
Cossacks after
Leo Tolstoy's novelet. 1965 saw him cast in the
Special Task, the second installment of the Kamo trilogy, as Mantasherov again, and
Mikhail Chiaureli-directed musical comedy
These Are New Times. Gomiashvili's involvement with
Ilf and Petrov's satire started in 1958 when, assisted by
Yuri Lyubimov, he produced the musical called
The Adventures of Ostap Bender (based on
The Little Golden Calf novel) where he played all the roles, including that of Zosya Sinitsina. In 1971
Leonid Gaidai, looking for the lead for his adaptation of
The Twelve Chairs, rehearsed 22 well-known actors (including
Vladimir Vysotsky,
Andrey Mironov, and
Yevgeny Yevstigneev) to no avail. Then he found Gomiashvili who performed
The Adventures of Ostap Bender in
Gorky and signed the man. The actor's relationships with the director were strained throughout. According to Gomiashvili, Gaidai was trying to dumb down the Bender character whom the actor saw as being much more than just a brilliant crook. "The director wouldn't let me show the warmer side to my hero. As I saw the film I didn't like it at all," Gomiashvili said later. Yet, it was Gaidai's
Twelve Chairs that made Gomiashvili the Soviet movie star. He made it to the Top 10 most popular Soviet actors of 1971, was invited to the
Soviet Council of Ministers's party and received by way of appreciation a luxurious flat (formerly that of
Svetlana Alliluyeva) in the legendary
House on the Embankment. In 1973 Gomiashvily joined the troupe of the Moscow
Lenkom Theatre. In 1980–1988 he worked at the Moscow
Pushkin Theatre. His 1971 triumph on the big screen, though, has never been repeated. At the age of 62 Archil Gomiashvili quit the stage to become a successful businessman, the prestigious Ostap Bender Club owner, and philanthropist. He continued to appear in films occasionally and in 1985–1994 played
Yosif Stalin five times. In the early 2000s he said in an interview:Thirty years are the whole life and I’ve lived this life as/with Ostap. He made me famous, got me a Moscow flat and this restaurant named in his honour... And you know, I think we have a lot in common. We both are actors in need of an audience. Without an audience I need neither chairs nor the money. In 2004 Archil Gomiashvili was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on May 31, 2005, in Moscow and on June 3, 2005 he was interred in
Troyekurovskoye Cemetery. ==Filmography==