Anton Yelchin — actor with roots in the USSR
He was born in Leningrad in March 1989, in the last years of the Soviet Union, to Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin - pair figure skaters who had been stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for fifteen years and were national celebrities. In 1972 they were the third-ranked pair in the country and qualified for the Winter Olympics. They were not permitted to go. Their son said later that he had never established why: whether because the family was Jewish, or because the authorities simply did not want them travelling.
In September 1989, when he was six months old, they left. They sold the flat, the dacha and the family jewellery, which they would not have been allowed to take out anyway, and arrived in the United States as refugees speaking no English, bringing Irina's father, who had recently had a stroke, and Viktor's mother. They settled in a small apartment in West Hollywood. Asked by a Los Angeles Times reporter that year why two people at the top of their profession had started again from nothing, both of them gave the same one-word answer: Anton.
In the same interview his mother mentioned that a woman had stopped by the pram in the street, looked at the baby, and said that he was beautiful and would be an actor.
His father became a skating coach in California and his mother a choreographer. He declined their instruction at four, having decided he wanted to act instead, and was working by nine. He appeared in Hearts in Atlantis, Alpha Dog, Charlie Bartlett, Like Crazy and Green Room, and built a reputation for taking small, difficult films seriously.
In 2009 he was cast as Pavel Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek - the Russian on the bridge, a part originated in the 1960s by Walter Koenig, himself the son of Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire. At his audition he was asked to produce a Russian accent. He played the role in three films.
He kept cystic fibrosis private for most of his life, and his family disclosed it only afterwards. He died in an accident at his home in Los Angeles in June 2016, aged twenty-seven. His parents established a foundation in his name that supports young people working in the arts who are dealing with serious illness or disability.
His uncle, Eugene Yelchin, also left Leningrad and became an illustrator and author in the United States; his novel Breaking Stalin's Nose, about a boy in the Moscow of the purges, received a Newbery Honor.
"Left Leningrad as refugees, September 1989, aged six months"
Migration storyTracing the roots — Leningrad (St. Pete)
The family left Leningrad in September 1989, when he was six months old, and were granted refugee status in the United States. In 2009 he was cast as Pavel Chekov in Star Trek - the part originated by Walter Koenig, himself the son of emigrants from the Russian Empire.
Born in Leningrad to the pair figure skaters Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for fifteen years. They qualified for the 1972 Winter Olympics as the third-ranked pair in the country and were not permitted to compete. His uncle is the illustrator and author Eugene Yelchin.
Leningrad (St. Pete). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.