Alexander Godunov — ballet dancer with roots in the USSR
Alexander Borisovich Godunov was born on 28 November 1949 in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the island of Sakhalin in the Russian Far East, to Boris Godunov and Lidia Studentova, and grew up in Riga, the capital of the Latvian SSR. At nine he entered the Riga Choreographic School, where one of his classmates and friends was Mikhail Baryshnikov, and he graduated in 1966.
He joined the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, in 1967 according to his UPI obituary or in 1971 according to most other sources, and became one of its principal dancers, praised for his leading roles in Swan Lake and Giselle. In 1973 he won the gold medal at the Moscow International Ballet Competition. Maya Plisetskaya, whose protégé he was, chose him as her partner in the screen versions of her ballets Anna Karenina (1975) and Carmen Suite (1978). In 1971 he married the Bolshoi ballerina Lyudmila Vlasova.
On 21 August 1979, while the Bolshoi was on tour in New York, he left his hotel and asked the American authorities for political asylum. Vlasova, who was on the same tour, returned to Moscow and danced at the Bolshoi until her retirement; they divorced in 1982. He joined American Ballet Theatre, where Baryshnikov was also dancing, and remained a principal until 1982; after Baryshnikov became artistic director, differences arose between them, and Godunov left the company. He made guest appearances with other American companies, among them the José Limón Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founded his own touring group, Godunov and Stars, and was the subject of the television special Godunov: The World to Dance In. He became an American citizen in 1987.
In 1985 he made his film debut as Daniel Hochleitner, the Amish farmer in Witness, opposite Harrison Ford. He went on to appear in The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks and, as the terrorist Karl Vreski, in Die Hard (1988) with Bruce Willis, and later in smaller films including The Runestone.
He was found dead in his home in West Hollywood on 18 May 1995, aged forty-five; some sources date his death a few days earlier. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
"Asked for political asylum in New York on 21 August 1979 during a Bolshoi tour; joined American Ballet Theatre; became a US citizen in 1987."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin (Russian SFSR, USSR); raised in Riga
Born in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in 1949 and raised in Riga, he trained at the Riga Choreographic School alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, became a principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet and Maya Plisetskaya's partner on film, and remained in the United States in 1979.
Soviet ballet star who defected.[web:17]
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin (Russian SFSR, USSR); raised in Riga. At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.