Yuri Georgiyevich Bogatyryov was born in Riga, Latvia, to the Soviet Navy officer Georgy Andrianovich Bogatyryov. In 1953 the family moved to
Moscow. Yuri was fond of painting and after the eighth grade he left the school to join the Mikhail Kalinin Art College There, after meeting a member of a youth puppet theatre/studio Globus, he became interested in theater. In 1966 Bogatyryov enrolled in the
Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and after the graduation joined the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre where he worked up until 1977, to move then to the Moscow Art Theater. Critic and writer Vitaly Wolf recalled: "I remember well him joining the troupe in 1971. He was popular: everybody saw the boy had talent. He was very nervous, very kind and extraordinarily open-hearted. His tutor Katin-Yartsev used to tell me how worried he was about Bogatyryov's openness and vulnerability." In 1970 Bogatyryov debuted on the big screen in
Nikita Mikhalkov's short film
The Calm Day in the End of the War. The actor became famous four years later after starring in Mikhalkov's 'Soviet western'
At Home Among Strangers, as Shilov, a
Red Army soldier. Critically acclaimed were his performances in three more Mikhalkov's features,
An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano (1976, based on
Chekhov's stories),
A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov (1979, the adaptation of
Ivan Goncharov's classic), and
Family Relations (Rodnya, 1981). Bogatyryov also starred in the TV series
Two Captains (1976, based on
Veniamin Kaverin's novel) and an epic
Declaration of Love (Obyasnenye v lyubvi, 1978). In his later years Bogatyryov experienced severe psychological problems, associated with his
bisexuality (the
homosexual side of which he apparently was trying to suppress), troubled personal life, financial problems, drugs and alcohol abuse. He died on 2 February 1989, after a dose of
clonidine injected by a paramedics' team (called to deal with a heart attack he suffered) clashed with
antidepressants he had taken earlier and a large dose of alcohol. Yuri Bogatyryov was buried at the
Vagankovo Cemetery on 6 February. == Critical reception ==