How the incurable diseases of his wife and children destroyed the fate of Frunzik Mkrtchyan
'26.01.2020'
Source: StarHit
Frunzik Mkrtchyan passed away on December 29, 1993. The comedic star in real life had few reasons to laugh. The artist’s wife was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and later their son was diagnosed with an incurable disease, says "StarHit".
There are people whose fate is similar to one continuous test of strength, and Frunzik Mkrtchyan is one of them. The actor became famous after his roles in the films "Prisoner of the Caucasus, or the new adventures of Shurik" and "Mimino." The audience literally idolized the artist, not even realizing what horrors he had to face daily.
Why, after so many vivid reincarnations, Mkrtchyan almost disappeared from the screens, and his friends whispered about the birth curse?
The story of amazing salvation
Perhaps the story begins in 1915. At that time, the Armenian Genocide took place in the territories controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Mkrtchyan’s relatives tried to escape from certain death, but not everyone managed to survive. Frunze Mushegovich’s future parents were found right on the road, after which they were sent to an orphanage.
There Mushegh and Sanam were brought up to adulthood. Later they married and became the parents of four children, but life was not easy. Dad and mother of the future star worked at a textile mill in Leninakan, then they were sorely lacking money. Mushegh once stole five meters of fabric to sell them and buy food for children. When he was caught, the sentence turned out to be extremely harsh: 10 years in the camps.
Frunze Mushegovich himself began to work at the age of 15: he worked as an assistant projectionist at a local club, and in his free time he played in a theater studio. Even then, Mkrtchyan understood that he wanted to devote his life to art.
“His thoughtless simplicity, piercing humanity and crazy Gyumri humor charged people, made them kinder to each other. He had an amazing gift - to notice the most characteristic things in a person, and then, passing through the prism of sensations, give out an image in an unexpected interpretation, almost to portrait resemblance, with gestures and facial expressions inherent in a particular person, ”said the artist’s brother Albert.
In 1951, Frunzik Mushegovich entered the Yerevan Theater and Art Institute. It was here that he met first love - a girl named Knara. After several months of relationship, the young artists decided to get married, but their marriage lasted only a couple of years.
This marriage broke up for a banal reason: Mkrtchyan met a great love that forever changed his life.
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The tragedy of a beloved woman
Donara Pilosyan arrived in Yerevan in the mid-50s to enter a theater university. Even then, she considered Mkrtchyan a great artist and dreamed that he would help her become a star. Despite the 11-year age difference, they began an affair for which Frunzik Mushegovich divorced his first wife.
At first, family relationships developed perfectly: Donara even starred with her husband in the "Caucasian Captive." The lovers had a son and a daughter, but gradually the behavior of his wife began to scare Mkrtchyan. The darling had tantrums, she was constantly jealous of him and refused to let him shoot. Realizing that something terrible was happening to Donara, Frunzik Mushegovich went to the doctors. Those after the examination made a disappointing diagnosis - schizophrenia.
“Both the happiness of Frunzik Mushegovich and the great pain are connected with Donara. He loved Donara madly and, you see, he saw his wife changing before her eyes: she turns into a helpless woman who, due to illness, loses her mind. Mkrtchyan did not want to come to terms with what was happening, he hoped that he would cure her, ”said the actor’s girlfriend, costume designer Anna Ermilova.
Then Mkrtchyan was already a star: using his connections and opportunities, the actor showed his wife to the best doctors in the country, but no one could help Donara. Caring for two children fell almost entirely on the artist, so he left the profession for five years.
As a result, Donar had to be sent to a French clinic, where she spent the last 25 years of her life.
“In the hospital walls until the very end, she remained an actress, turning them into a theater. She collected staff and patients in the lobby, read poetry to them or told stories about herself that she invented. She liked to be in the spotlight, ”Anna Ermilova shared her memories.
His wife’s health problems were the first big blow for Mkrtchyan. Then, to cope with grief, he began to drink. In the future, it is a bad habit to aggravate due to misfortunes that will fall on the artist’s children.
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Nune and Vazgen
According to the recollections of relatives, the children were the greatest joy for Frunzik Mushegovich. He literally idolized the heirs and littered them with toys.
“He was interested in everything. Sometimes it starts to disassemble children's toys in order to understand how the mechanisms function and explain this to children. He will disassemble, but of course he cannot assemble it back. He was an amazingly kind and subtle man. Everyone had complaints against him, but he didn’t have them to anyone, ”said the star’s younger brother.
Again, Mkrtchyan decided to marry only after there was no hope for Donara’s recovery. His chosen one was the daughter of the chairman of the Union of Writers of Armenia Tamara Hovhannisyan. This marriage did not last long, but was a real comfort for Frunzik Mushegovich.
At some point, the artist began to notice that his son was behaving strangely. Of course, he immediately consulted with doctors and it turned out that these are symptoms of hereditary schizophrenia. The disease was transmitted to the boy from his mother, and the doctors could not do anything about it.
“When we called up, we used to talk about something, and suddenly he asks for no reason:“ Why do I need all this? Why? ”He suffered a lot. I tried to help many people, for example, brought someone in short supply of drugs from abroad. Apparently, he needed the joy and gratitude of other people in order to somehow drown his own pain, ”recalled the artist’s girlfriend.
Frunze Mushegovich could not help his son: the young man also had to be sent to a hospital, where he was provided with psychiatric help every day. Vazgen died in 2003 at the age of 31 due to complications caused by the disease.
Mkrtchyan’s only daughter did not pass by the family curse either. Together with her husband, Nune left Armenia. In the mid-90s, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. To prevent the consequences of the development of the disease, an operation had to be done. After surgery, the condition of the actor’s heiress worsened. A few days later she died from a clot with a blood clot, at that time Nuna was 39 years old.
The departure of the great artist
Frunzik Mushegovich left the cinema in the late 80s. A talented artist, the favorite of millions of viewers, suddenly just stopped acting. Fans associated this decision with heavy alcohol addiction, which the actor could no longer control. However, close friends of Mkrtchyan claimed that at that time he was obsessed with the idea of developing his own theater.
The cultural institution was created in 1986, and Frunzik Mushegovich invested all means and forces in it. When the country began to fall apart in the early 90s, the actor was very sensitive to the changes.
“A year before his death, he completely lost heart - the Soviet Union collapsed, festive Yerevan turned into a battlefield. Frunzik fell into depression, he was depressed all around. In addition, he was seriously ill - he had a stomach ulcer, underwent two operations, lost a lot of weight, ”recalled the artist’s friend Anna Ermilova.
At that time, his close friends began to leave one after another. At the funeral of another friend, Frunze Mushegovich felt bad. The artist had a heart attack: the heart simply could not stand all the shocks suffered.
The news of the death of Mkrtchyan was a tragedy for thousands of spectators. Crowds of fans came to his funeral in Yerevan, who led the famous artist on his last journey.
Frunzik Mushegovich did not see how his children died and did not know that his beloved wife Donara would die in a psychiatric clinic in France. For many years, the solace for the comedy star has been work. His work still lives on: Mher Artistic Theater (as Frunzik was called at home) Mkrtchyan is now considered one of the main cultural institutions in Yerevan.
