The voice of time: Alexey Zolotnitsky died

Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Alexey Zolotnitsky has died at the age of 79. Theater regulars know this surname well: Alexey Alekseevich played a number of prominent roles in popular Moscow theaters, including the Mayakovsky Theater, the Mossovet Theater, and the Actor's Studio Theater.

But he is much better known to fans of cinema. In addition to his own roles in widescreen and television films, he was actively engaged in dubbing, and many world film stars spoke on Russian screens in his unique voice. Izvestia recalls the brightest pages of the actor's biography.

Son of Arbat

Alexey Zolotnitsky was born on July 16, 1946 in the Arbat district in an intelligent Moscow family. His grandfather, Vladimir Nikolaevich, was a famous Soviet doctor, a specialist in the treatment of tuberculosis.

His father, Alexei Vladimirovich, fell in love with cinema from a young age and studied at VGIK with the famous Sergei Eisenstein. Like a great teacher, Zolotnitsky Sr. made bold experiments in cinema, creating one of the first Soviet stereo films and becoming one of the initiators of the classical Soviet dubbing school.

Alexey Zolotnitsky became infected with his father's passion for cinema from an early age, went with him to watch films and to the dubbing studio. Zolotnitsky Jr. began working alongside his father in his school years, taking part in dubbing films from the age of 11. He quickly discovered an amazing talent in this field — good acting skills were combined with an incredibly beautiful baritone voice that captivated Soviet moviegoers for many years.

Zolotnitsky himself said that the voice literally fed him all his life: if there were breaks in filming, then proposals for dubbing foreign films were constantly received. When Zolotnitsky wasn't filming, he was voicing another world masterpiece. Early practice, according to the actor, gave him a lot professionally: the acquired knowledge and training helped him to work with his voice for a long time and not get tired.

At the age of 11, Zolotnitsky and his parents moved from Arbat to Rostokino, to Sergei Eisenstein Street, where his parents received an apartment in the Gorky Film studio building. He confessed that at first he did not believe that he would be able to get rid of the old Arbat lanes. However, he got used to his new place surprisingly quickly.

Zolotnitsky lived in his apartment on Eisenstein Street for several decades, and it became an important part of his biography. The actor's neighbor turned out to be Stanislav Rostotsky, with whom they had been friends for decades.

A broad-profile actor

By the age of 13, Alexey Zolotnitsky had become a sought-after dubbing actor: he could voice four films at a time. So that studying would not interfere with his beloved work, Zolotnitsky transferred to evening school. At the same time, he entered the studio at the Stanislavsky Theater, where many brilliant actors studied, including Inna Churikova and Nikita Mikhalkov. By his own admission, it was this school that became an important step into the profession for him. After graduating from secondary education, Alexey Zolotnitsky saw only one professional path ahead of him and entered the Shchepkin Theater School.

As a third-year student, the actor, following his father's example, entered the Faculty of Philology at Moscow State University. My father was an encyclopaedically educated man and believed that an actor did not have enough professional education, he needed at least a classical one.

Alas, he never received a university diploma: in his third year at the university, Alexey Zolotnitsky graduated from the Shchepkin College, after which he was expected to work for three years in his specialty. I had to quit my philology course.

In 1967, as a fresh graduate of Shchepkinsky, Alexey Zolotnitsky became a laureate of the young actors-reciters competition. However, he no longer had to prove his skills to the directors. Later, Oleg Tabakov, artistic director of Tabakerka, jokingly called him the "golden voice."

Alexey Zolotnitsky has always had plenty of offers for roles in theaters and movies. At various times, he played at the Mayakovsky Theater, the Mossovet Theater, and the Film Actor's Studio Theater.
Among the roles Zolotnitsky played were Chatsky in "Woe from Wit", leading roles in classic plays: "Comedy of Errors", "Idiot", "Ordinary Story", "Confession of the adventurer Felix Krul" and many others. In 1989, he joined Oleg Tabakov's Studio Theater and worked on stage until his last years, and called the theater the second family.

At the same time, Zolotnitsky was actively acting in films. His rich acting background helped him successfully perform a variety of roles — from landowner Pan Klembovsky in the film "I, the son of the working people" to "The School of Courage", where the actor played a paratrooper. His most popular character was Rogers the butler in "Ten Little Niggers."

The Voice of Hollywood

His work in theater and cinema did not prevent Zolotnitsky from successfully pursuing a brilliant career in film sound. Many of Zolotnitsky's colleagues claimed that about half of Hollywood managed to speak in his voice. He himself admitted that he had voiced more than 10,000 roles in Hollywood and European films.

His voice was spoken by Robert Redford, Robert de Niro, Alain Delon, Rowan Atkinson and Anthony Hopkins. He also re-voiced many Soviet actors, in particular, Lembit Ulfsak in the film "In Search of Captain Grant".

Since 1994, Zolotnitsky has been the leading voice of the large SV-Double company and has voiced many films and television series for Russian TV channels.

But no less than an acting career, family ties were important for Zolotnitsky. Having taken a lot from his father himself, he spent his whole life trying to be a good father to his three sons and managed to raise them to be real people with a capital letter and professionals in their field.
Alexey Zolotnitsky's eldest son, Vladimir, was the organizer of the popular TV program "Crime" and the head of the Legal Program Service on NTV. His career was interrupted on the rise: he passed away at the age of 36 from a serious illness.

The actor's second son, Philip, is a lieutenant general in the customs service, and the youngest son, Alexander, also went on television, becoming the head of such programs as "Attention, search!", "The investigation was conducted..." with Leonid Kanevsky and "Outlaw."

Alexey Zolotnitsky loved his grandchildren very much and tried to devote as much time as possible to them. They also followed in the family footsteps and chose creative professions: one of the actor's grandchildren, Anton Zolotnitsky, now works as a columnist for Izvestia.

The actor's health gradually deteriorated. In 2011, Alexey Zolotnitsky suffered a minor stroke, but continued to play on the theater stage. In 2017, another stroke led to speech and movement coordination disorders. After a long illness, the actor died on October 25, 2025.