Juozas Stanislavas Budraitis was born on 6 October 1940 in the village of Liepynai,
Kelmė,
Lithuanian SSR,
Soviet Union in a peasant family. In 1945, the family moved to
Klaipėda, and in 1955 – to the small town of Švėkšna. In the years 1958-1960, Budraitis worked as a laborer at a training and production plant in Klaipėda. After serving in the army, he entered the law faculty of
Vilnius University. During the third year of his studies, he was approved for one of the main roles in the
Vytautas Žalakevičius film
Nobody Wanted to Die which was released in 1966. Budraitis was already finishing his third year
externally and afterwards transferred to the correspondence department. In 1968 he graduated from the university and started working as an actor at the
Lithuanian Film Studios. By that time he had already become an established actor. From 1968 to 1976 Budraitis was filming in the republic and in films of other Soviet directors. During this period, he starred in the films
The Shield and the Sword (1967),
Two Comrades Were Serving (1968),
The Lanfier Colony (1969),
White Dunes (1969),
King Lear (1970)
Ave Vita (1970),
The Rudobel Republic (1971),
That Sweet Word: Liberty! (1973),
With You and without You ... (1973),
Blockade (1974),
Time does not Wait (1975),
The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce (1976),
The Legend of Thiel (1976),
The Lost House (1976). In 1976-1978 Budraitis studied at the
High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors under the
State Committee for Cinematography in Moscow. He then probationed as an assistant director on the set where his master and teacher was Žalakevičius. But the director's career of Budraitis did not work out after the failure of his debut film
City of Birds (1982) based on the story of Yuri Olesha. In 1980-1988 he was an actor of the
Kaunas State Drama Theatre, where he acted in the plays
Builder Solnes (1980),
Sharunas (
Prince of Dainavsky, 1980),
Blue Horses on Red Grass (1982),
Caligula (1983),
Private (1985),
The Home for the Elderly (1986). In parallel with the work in the theater, the actor continued to play in films. In the 1980s, he starred in the films
Life Is Beautiful (1979), ''
Fairfax's Millions (1980), Dangerous Age
(1981), Niccolo Paganini
(1982), Honeymoon in America
(1982), Confessions of his Wife
(1984), Battle of Moscow (1985), The 13th Apostle (1988), The Sinner'' (1988), etc. In 1983, Budraitis played one of the main roles in the television series
The Rich Man, the Poor Man, based on the novel of the same name by
Irwin Shaw, and also starred in the romantic comedy
Carousel. These roles have made him one of the most sought-after actors of his generation. In the 1990s, he starred in the films
Under a Sky of Blue (1990),
Mad Laurie (1991),
Do not Ask Me About Nothing (1991),
The Trail of the Rain (1991),
The Tragedy of the Century (1993),
The House on a Rock (1994), ''The Devil's Charm
(1994), I do not know who I am'' (1995), etc. At the same time, he continues to act actively in domestic and Russian films, such as
Classic (1999),
Demobbed (2000),
Revenge is Sweet (2001),
Down House (2001),
Princess Slutskaya (2004),
The Fall of the Empire (2005),
Wolfhound (2006),
Tanker Tango (2006),
Yes You Will not be Judged ... (2007),
Kromov (2009),
Debt (2009),
Armed resistance (2009),
Black Arrow (2009), and others. In February 2008, Juozas Budraitis performed for the first time on the Russian stage, having played one of the main roles in the new performance of the
Presnyakov brothers PAB, the premiere of which took place in Theatrium on Serpukhovka. In 2009, he acted in the play
Cherry Orchard staged by the Finnish director Christian Smeds. ==Other activities==