Vladimir Fetin was born Vladimir Fetting in
Moscow into a noble Russian-
German Fetting family which traced its history to Pyotr Ivanovich Fetting (born Pierre Friedrich de Fetting), a
military engineer who moved to the
Russian Empire from
Berlin in 1812. In 1943 he was enlisted in the
Red Army and fought in the first reserve artillery corps. It was compared favourably with the French movie
White Mane by foreign critique. Fetting's surname appeared as "Fetin" in the credits, he adopted it and used in all of his movies. In 1960 he was approached with an ambitious screenplay of a comedy about a ship overran by tigers. It was written with the famous
tiger tamer Margarita Nazarova in mind who agreed to play the main part while her husband and circus partner Konstantin Konstantinovsky was to manage tigers and perform various stunts.
Striped Trip was shot on board of a motor vessel in the
Black Sea, with ten tigers, a lion and a chimpanzee acting along with popular comedy actors. It was released in 1961 to an overwhelming success, becoming the Soviet box leader with 45.8 mln viewers. After that Fetin turned back to dramas and directed
Don Tale (1964), another Sholokhov adaptation based on two of his early stories. Once again he cast
Yevgeny Leonov in the main part along with
Lyudmila Chursina whom he married shortly after the film was released, again, to a success, becoming the 7th most popular Soviet movie of 1964 with 31.8 mln viewers. His drama
Sweet Woman was seen by 31.3 mln people, becoming the 12th most successful Soviet film of 1977. Vladimir Fetin died on 20 August 1981 from heart attack, shortly after finishing
Lost Among the Living. He was buried in Leningrad at the South Cemetery. He was married three times, with a son from the first marriage and a daughter from the third. His second wife, an actress
Lyudmila Chursina (born 1941), starred in four of his movies in the leading roles. According to her, Fetin developed a drinking problem while waiting for new projects which led to a split and ruined his health. ==Filmography==