The Actor Who Inspired Putin Has Died
Source: Daily Beast
How the Actor Donatas Banionis Inspired Vladimir Putin to Become a Spy
The Russian president apparently joined the KGB after seeing the Lithuanian, who went on to star in Solaris and died Thursday at 90, in a Soviet-era spy flick.
Why did Vladimir Putin go to work for the KGB? Same reason any of us do anything: He saw a movie.
The Russian president was reportedly inspired, at least in part, to get into the repression and spook biz after seeing Dead Season, a 1968 Soviet spy flick directed by Savva Kulish and starring the Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis as a James Bond-esque intelligence agent. When Banionis met Putin at the Kremlin, the actor asked if it was true that his character influenced his choice of profession. Putin laughed and said, “Yes, I suppose you can say that.”
The acclaimed Soviet-era actor died Thursday at the age of 90, and Putin expressed his condolences to Banionis’s son: “Russians sincerely share your deep sorrow,” he said in a message. “We all remembered and loved Donatas Banionis, valued his talent, amazing acting technique and personal charisma, and his inimitable theatric and cinematic works.”
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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/05/how-the-actor-donatas-banionis-inspired-vladimir-putin-to-become-a-spy.html
Note: The article title on google news is "The Actor Who Inspired Putin Has Died" so I've used that as the title for this post.
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RIP Abe Vigoda. 
