Leonid Amalrik

Leonid Alekseyevich Amalrik (; — 22 October 1997) was a Soviet animator and animation director. He was named Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1965. Biography Early years Leonid was born to Anna Mikhailovna and Aleksey Ivanovich Amalrik, an employee and later an inspector at the Russia insurance company, a distinguished citizen of Moscow. His paternal great-grandfather Jean Amalric emigrated to Russia from Avignon, France during the 19th century and founded a lace manufactory, but later burned it down during his alcoholic intoxication; both Amalric and his wife were killed in fire, only their 4-year-old son also named Jean survived. He was raised by the French colony in Moscow as Ivan Ivanovich Amalrik and later joined the Albert Hübner's Calico Manufactory. He was married to the daughter of the Moscow 1st class merchant Sergei Belkin from Old Believers. Among their children was Sergei Amalrik, grandfather of the Soviet writer and dissident Andrei Amalrik, and Aleksey Amalrik, father of Leonid. Amalrik grew up in a wealthy family at the Arbat District in the center of Moscow. At the age of seven he had to spend several months in bed following the appendectomy. During that time he started drawing and became addicted to it. He would later direct a part-autobiographical film A Girl and an Elephant (1969) based on Aleksandr Kuprin's story as well as his childhood memories. In 1925 he entered the State College of Cinema to study for a set decorator. From 1926 to 1928 he worked at Mezhrabpom-Rus as a scene painter assistant under Abram Room, Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin.