Menshov was born in a Russian family in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.[7] His father, Valentin Mikhailovich Menshov, was a sailor and later an NKVD officer; his mother Antonina Aleksandrovna Menshova (née Dubovskaya) was a housewife. Because of his father's work, the family lived in Baku, Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan.[8]
As a teenager Menshov worked as a machinist student at a factory, at a mine in Vorkuta, as a sailor on a diving boat in Baku, and also as an understudying actor at the Astrakhan Drama Theater.[9] In 1961 he entered the acting department of the Moscow Art Theatre School. During the second year he married actress Vera Alentova who was also studying at the same theatre school.[10] In 1965 he graduated from the acting department.[11] After graduating, he worked for two years as actor and assistant director at the Stavropol Regional Drama Theater.[9]
In 1970 he graduated from the VGIK postgraduate course in the department of feature film direction[11] (Mikhail Romm's workshop).[12]
From 1970 to 1976, Vladimir Menshov worked under contracts at the film studios Mosfilm, Lenfilm and the Odessa Film Studio.[13] He made a short thesis film On the Question of the Dialectic of the Perception of Art, or Lost Dreams,[14] wrote the stage version of the novel Mess-Mend by Marietta Shaginyan, which was staged at the Leningrad Youth Theater,[15] and wrote the script I'm Serving on the Border at the request of Lenfilm.[2]
In those years his cinematic acting career began: he starred in the title role in the thesis work of his classmate Alexander Pavlovsky Happy Kukushkin.[13] The film was shot at the Odessa Film Studio.[16] Vladimir Menshov also was a co-author of the script. The picture received the main prize at the Molodist-71 Kiev Film Festival[17][16] Menshov starred in a 1972 film by Alexei Sakharov called A Man in His Place.[15] In 1973 Menshov was awarded the first prize for the best performance at the VI All-Union Film Festival in Almaty.[18][19]
Menshov's directorial debut took place in 1976, it was the film Practical Joke.[22] Menshov's second picture, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears became one of Russia's box-office record holders, was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, and then the Oscar (1981) as the Best Foreign Language Film.[23] The film tells the story of lives of three women over two decades. It was also a box-office hit.[24]
In 1984, Menchov directed the film Love and Pigeons based on the play of Vladimir Gurkin.[25]
Vladimir Menshov also directed the following films: What a Mess! (1995),[22]The Envy of Gods (2000), and The Great Waltz.[13] The Great Waltz was not finished.[26]
He wrote screenplays for the films I Serve on the Border (1973), The Night Is Short (1981), What a Mess! (1995), The Great Waltz (2008),[13] was the producer of several films, among which: Love of Evil (1998), Chinese Service (1999), Quadrille (1999), The Envy of Gods (2000), Neighbor (2004), A Time to Gather Stones (2005), Shawls (2006), and The Great Waltz.[9]
Vladimir Menshov – Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1984),[14] People's Artist of Russia (1989),[22] winner of the State Prizes of the RSFSR (1978,[22] for the film Rally) and the USSR (1981,[22] for the film Moscow Does not Believe in Tears).
The Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (1999)[14]
The "For Services to Moscow" badge (30 July 2009)[2]
The Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (2010)[14]
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