Background
Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich was born into a theatrical family of noble heritage. His mother Nina Ivanovna Buiko was a ballet dancer.
Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich was born into a theatrical family of noble heritage. His mother Nina Ivanovna Buiko was a ballet dancer.
Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich graduated from the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatrical Institute in 1963.
Most famous for his musicals and Alexandre Dumas adaptations. He directed 22 motion pictures and television movies between 1966 and 2009. Honored Artist of the Russian SFSR (1990) and Ukraine (1995).
He joined Bolsheviks in 1917.
Georgi"s father Emil Iosifovich Yungvald-Khilkevich was an acclaimed theater director and one of the founders of the Uzbek National Theater of Opera and Ballet (later Navoi Theater). He worked as a set designer at Tashkent theaters and film studios.
In 1966 he finished directing and screenwriting Mosfilm courses and started working at the Odessa Film Studio, where he later directed most of his movies. His first major breakthrough happened in 1969 with the musical film Dangerous Tour loosely based on the memoirs of Alexandra Kollontai.
The screenplay was written with Vladimir Vysotsky in mind, who eventually played the main part, wrote all the songs and did some uncredited contribution to the final draft.
The film turned to be one of the leaders of the Soviet box office in 1970 (9th place). In 1978 Khilkevich turned to Alexandre Dumas who happened to be one of his favourite writers since childhood. His 3-part made-for-television adventure musical Doctorate"Artagnan and Three Musketeers turned to be an ultimate success, with many songs and catchphrases becoming part of the popular culture.
lieutenant was followed by three sequels in 1992, 1993 and 2009.
In 1988 he made another Dumas adaptation – The Prisoner of Château d"If based on The Count of Monte Cristo novel. The screenplay was co-written by Mark Zakharov, while all the songs were written and performed by Alexander Gradsky.
Among his other notable works was another musical Ah, Vaudeville, Vaudeville.. and a comedy The Art of Living in Odessa based on The Odessa Tales by Isaac Babel. He rarely turned to cinema during the post-Soviet years.
In 1997 he joined Yuri Kuklachev at the National Cats Theater in Moscow as a stage director and scriptwriter.
He also worked as a set designer in various theaters. His last film in the Musketeer series directed in 2007 and screened in 2009 was met with harsh critique and became a box office bomb. Yungvald-Khilkevich died from the heart failure at the age of 81.
He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.