Hercule Poirot Comes From Russia

Actor David Suchet is said to be a son of a doctor who emigrates from Ukraine after the Revolution in Russia
At first, the Queen of detective Agatha Christie was very fond of the hero she invented, a little pedantic Belgian with a heroic name. It seems that when the author got tired of inventing intricate collisions for the hero, she decided to murder him and never raised him from the dead. In many years, the detective all the same rose from the ashes in movies. 

The number of movies about Hercule (the Belgian variant of the name Hercules) Poirot is just slightly smaller as compared with films about Sherlock Holmes. Experts say that English series with David Suchet in the role of Hercule Poirot is the best version of the detective's adventures. 

British actor David Suchet, 55, was born into a family of an actress and a doctor. At first he decided to follow his father's path and wanted to enter the medicine faculty, but failed the physics and chemistry exams. After that he started studies at the dramatic school.

The actor is probably of Russian origin. It has been reported on the Internet several times already that some doctor Sushinsky emigrated from the Ukrainian city of Kiev to France after the Great October Revolution, where his name was later shortened for the difficulty to pronounce it. His son moved to England where the French variant of the name was pronounced in the English manner. This is said to be how the name Suchet appeared. It is surprisingly interesting that David Suchet got his first award for the role of Lavrenti Beria he performed in the film Red Monarch, the film dedicated to the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. David's brother, John is also popular: he is an ITN TV channel host, speaks French, German and Russian. 

The characters of David Suchet and his hero Poirot are alike. The actor is very pedantic: "All things in my home must be in their places, what is more, all of them must make up a finished composition. If the habitual order is broken, I feel irritated. I realize it is unbearable for other people to endure this habit of mine, but I cannot help anything. If there are two books on the table, they must lie symmetrically. But you know, I'm not so fastidious as Poirot. When I have boiled eggs for breakfast, I don't demand they must be of equal size." 

When the series about Hercule Poirot just started, David Suchet wasn't an admirer of Agatha Christie, he never even read her books seriously. But when he was picked out for the role of Poirot, he thoroughly studied all stories about the detective to make the film image perfectly similar to the image in the book. Besides, David Suchet studied the Belgian history to understand the environment where his hero was brought up and lived. Then the actor hired a tutor to purposely distort his English and to acquire an elegant accent. Mastering of particular Poirot's step was another objective of the actor. To be a success with it, David Suchet asked costume designers to maximally constrict all trousers in the hips. He learnt to walk the way Agatha Christie described in her books, in small and fast steps. Then came Poirot's mustache which was mentioned in Christie's books 24 times! The actor and make-up men tried 40 pairs of mustache before they managed to find perfectly symmetric ones. The weight of the actor was smaller than that of Hercule. Costume designers had to build up approximately 22 centimeters in the waist. So, when David Suchet was tapped on the shoulder during shooting of the film, he didn't feel it because of the thick lining of the clothes.

The hard process of work on the character of Hercule Poirot can make anyone hate the hero. But once David Suchet said in an interview: "I love him. There is something incredibly irritating in him, but at the same time this feature is very attractive. He drives me mad, I am sure he does so with the audience and probably did with Agatha Christie as well. I think he drove her mad with his selfishness, fastidiousness and pomposity. It's great that he makes a woman feel a lady. One actress told me once that she understood why women adored Poirot: she said it was because women felt safe with him." 

Recently the British Queen awarded David Suchet with a honorary decoration for "particular contribution to the drama art development." The actor said the award was an honor not only for him, but it would be honor for Hercule Poirot himself as well. British journalists say that the Queen's decision to award David Suchet is explained with the passion of Her Majesty for Agatha Christie's novels.

Now David Suchet is the vice-president of the Society of Agatha Christie's fans where grandson of the Queen of Detective, Mathew, is the president.

Material prepared by Lyubov Berchanskaya
The Vladivostok newspaper