Home adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels are still regarded as some of the best in the world. Even the late Elizabeth II admitted that the actor Vasily Livanov managed to embody the image of the best Mr. Holmes. Meanwhile, the production of crime films has not been without its problems.
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Interestingly, he was the lead actor in a series of films about the most famous detective on the planet that gave director Igor Maslennikov trouble. Already after the end of work on Sherlock Holmes, their paths parted. The director himself passed away in September of this yearto the last he did not want to talk about Livanov.
If we recall at least the filming history of The Hound of the Baskervilles, then we can understand how tense the relationship between Maslennikov and Livanov was. Even before the start of the main work, Nikita Mikhalkov, who was invited to play Lord Henry, together with Alexander Adabashyan, in every possible way interfered with Maslennikov. Both artists themselves have already managed to become directors, and therefore decided to put themselves above the main person on the set, that is, Igor Fedorovich himself.
Livanov, who disliked the director, made fun of Mikhalkov and Adabashyan instead of calling the restless couple to order. Fortunately for the whole team, the director managed to find an approach with Nikita Sergeevich, and he coped with Adabashyan simply brilliantly. But with Livanov everything was much more complicated.
You can list for a long time everything that happened at that moment between the creator of Sherlock Holmes and his star. But the only important thing is that after a key event, the two celebrities finally fell out. Shortly before his death, Maslennikov explained why he didn’t want to hear anything about Livanov.
“I didn’t fight with him. It was he who inflated like a bubble because I dared to write in my book – the same “Baker Street on Petrogradskaya” – that he was a mediocre actor, but at the same time an ideal type for the role of Holmes. By the way, I was going to shoot him from the very beginning, because I didn’t see anyone else in this role. And he pouted and has been throwing mud at me ever since. So no, we don’t communicate, we don’t cancel. And we have no intention of doing that. For what reason? He’s gone to hell! said Maslennikov.
