[328x480]
By Carl Schreck
Maxim Galkin waiting for a contestant's answer in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
Maxim Galkin waiting for a contestant's answer in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
MOSCOW - Close your eyes and you hear Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky bantering back and forth. Zhirinovsky is angry, as usual, and Putin occasionally interjects some German gibberish that he picked up during his days as a KGB spook in East Germany.
But when you open your eyes, neither the president nor the flamboyant leader of the Liberal Democratic Party is anywhere in sight. Instead you see a wiry, boyish-looking 27-year-old contorting his face and vocal chords.
His name is Maxim Galkin. He has used his knack for aping politicians and celebrities to become the country's most sought-after impersonator and a leading entertainer in his own right.
Galkin said he discovered his unique impersonating abilities when he was 12.
"I started with Gorbachev and then moved on to Yeltsin and Zhirinovsky," Galkin said, munching on a bowl of mixed berries during a recent interview in a cafe at the World Class fitness club. "Back then, whenever we had guests, everyone demanded that I do impersonations."
Galkin's publicist requested that no photographer be present during the interview, apparently hesitant about letting unflattering pictures of her client appear in the press. And indeed, the petite Galkin looked a little beat, with dark circles under his eyes and unkempt hair.
He chided the bartender for forgetting the honey for his tea, a prerequisite for battling colds.
"I've worked so much lately that I'm simply tired," Galkin said. "I'm just taking it easy right now, not working."
Judging by the New Year's festivities on television, it's not difficult to believe that Galkin is exhausted. He was everywhere.
His Channel One concert "Neposlyedny Geroi," a mish-mash of impersonations - including Zhirinovsky, Putin, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and Boris Yeltsin - skits and musical numbers, was the most-watched New Year's Eve program in Moscow, according to a Gallup poll.
The concert's ratings narrowly edged out a Channel One New Year's Eve special in which Galkin performed alongside pop diva Alla Pugachyova and other stars. On Jan. 1, Channel One aired the musical "Za Dvumya Zaitsami," in which he starred with Pugachyova and Ukrainian drag queen Verka Serdyuchka.
Galkin has joined the sometimes bizarre fantasy world of Russian pop stars, lounge singers and variety acts known as estrada, thanks to his friendship and collaboration with Pugachyova, so it's no coincidence that wherever he goes, she is not far behind.
Pugachyova became Galkin's ticket into estrada when she invited him to record the catchy duet "Bud ili ne Bud" in the fall of 2001, only a few months after meeting him at a concert in which they both performed. The song quickly became a pop hit, and the pair has been practically inseparable ever since.
It seems Pugachyova is seen in public more often with Galkin than with her pop star husband, Fillip Kirkorov. Galkin has even perfected his impersonation of her, leading to at least one memorable prank.
"[Pop-opera singer Nikolai] Baskov and I were over at Alla Borisovna's one time while Kirkorov was on tour in Mongolia," Galkin said. "I called him and talked to him for a while in his wife's voice, and he believed it was Alla Borisovna. He never knew until I told him sometime later."
Galkin pointed out that his fame did not come overnight. He began giving performances while he was a linguistics student at Russian State Humanities University, and with his star rising, he finally began performing on television in 1998, the year he graduated.
In the spring of 2001, he landed the job as the host of the Russian version of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," a role he said he enjoyed greatly and that cemented his star status.
"I was flying to New York, and there were some Americans on the plane, and one of them recognized me," he said. "He started to tell all of his friends that I was the Russian [version of American host] Regis Philbin."
Galkin's fame has crossed the Atlantic, and he has given performances in front of emigre audiences in Atlantic City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He said he preferred the West Coast cities - Los Angeles because of its great boutiques.
Despite his success in game shows and pop songs, impersonations are Galkin's bread and butter.
He adopts a drunken swagger for Yeltsin and turns to his five years of German classes at the university to mimic Putin's fluent German. He has performed in front of Putin and said he has seen the president chuckling at the impersonation.
Though political parodies anchor his act, Galkin said he is not a
Читать далее...