Vitsin and his partners, Yury Nikulin and Yevgeny Morgunov, became the heroes of post-Thaw Soviet satire, playing a team of misfits whose attempts to commit petty crimes invariably failed. Vitsin's character was known as the ever unsure and dependent Coward, while Morgunov played a slightly dim-witted, heavy-set drunk labeled Experienced, and Nikulin, a professional clown, was simply called the Nitwit. The trio's best-known film was "Kavkazskaya Plennitsa," or "Captive of the Caucasus."
Nikulin died in 1998 and Morgunov a year later.
Born in St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, in 1918, Vitsin enjoyed a long acting career and continued performing until close to the end of his life. Apart from playing with Nikulin and Morgunov, he appeared in dozens of films that earned him the adoration of millions.
"He was one of those rare people and actors whom upon meeting, you immediately feel as if they must know just as much about you as you know about them," Oscar-winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov said in a telephone interview.
"He was a great, great, great actor. But his work has yet to be appreciated in full," Mikhalkov said. "It's a special gift [to be able] to play mostly negative characters in such way that viewers see them as fragile people in need of help," and sympathize with them, he said.
According to Mikhalkov, Vitsin was also rare in that his popularity did not affect his personality. He was modest to the point that even in recent years, when his financial circumstances were abysmal, he never asked for help.
The news of Vitsin's poor health and poverty spread just last week, after the actor was hospitalized and his wife Tamara finally appealed for help.
"We moved him to a better hospital, but that was all he would agree to accept," Mikhalkov said. "For a few days, it seemed he was recovering, but I guess his long-term health problems were just too serious."
Over the past week, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily and Ekho Moskvy radio station announced a fund-raising drive to help the Vitsins. The actor, however, refused to accept any financial assistance.
"Never in his life did he consider such a thing possible," Mikhalkov said. "It would be hard to imagine that in the 84th year of his life he would suddenly change his mind."
Vitsin's memorial service and funeral have been scheduled for Thursday, Interfax reported.
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