Alexander Godunov Movies and Career Information

Alexander Borisovich Godunov (Russian: Александр Борисович Годунов; November 28, 1949 – May 18, 1995) was a Russian-American ballet dancer and film actor, whose defection caused a diplomatic incident between the USA and the USSR. Godunov was born in Sakhalin, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. He joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 1971 and rose to become premier dancer. His teachers there included Aleksey Yermolayev. After playing Lemisson, the Royal Musician in a 1978 Soviet adaptation of The Thirty-first of June by J. B. Priestley, Godunov became well known in the Soviet Union as a movie actor. His roles included Vronsky in Anna Karenina in 1974. On August 21, 1979, while on a tour with the Bolshoi Ballet in New York City, Godunov contacted authorities and asked for political asylum. After discovering his absence, the KGB responded by putting his wife, Lyudmila Vlasova, a soloist with the company, on a plane to Moscow, but the flight was stopped before take-off while the State Department tried to determine whether she was leaving voluntarily. US diplomats arrived to the plane with US passport ready for Vlasova, but she declined; so authorities allowed the flight. Then U.S. President Jimmy