Oleg finished school in 1977.
…Menshikov came to the Drama school for the first round of entrance examinations.
"That year Monakhov and I enrolled students," recalls Nikolay Nikolayevich Afonin, today's Head of the Drama school, who used to be a teacher back then. "We listened to and watched many entrants then. Oleg rose above all from the very beginning: a smart, vivid and cheerful boy. We took notice of him. We advised him what to recite during the next rounds. Now I can confess that back then we became his fans. And he deserved it. He passed all the tests without a hitch".
…There were Muscovites and people from other cities and towns among students. The Menshikovs welcomed everyone into their home. By that time they had moved to Sokolniki and had a larger flat.
"Gosh, how many days and nights we spent at Oleg's!" recalls Oleg's mate Victor Bokhan. "Poor parents of his! We would empty their fridge in the true traditions of always hungry students. But they loved us, were very generous and hospitable. We kept talking, disputing, inventing something… Oleg was charming, full of energy, those features attracted people to him. Being a first-year student, Oleg together with Gennady Krug and Elena Manysheva composed and showed a great eccentric musical performance. Oleg and Elena played the piano and at the same time they creeped under the piano, lay on the floor, sat, threw the chairs away and played another piano. It was an enchanting sight…"
"Actually, we kept inventing something all the time then, we were full of enthusiasm. We came to the institute even on Sundays. Guards would say, "Go home, take some rest! Everybody is tired of you, restless souls!" We were one huge, happy, cheerful family. And it was like that till the very end - till the graduation. It was already clear where everyone would work, which is always hard, because there could be no equality in situations like that, but that didn't bother us at all".
"I recall, during the first year, we were offered to do something extraordinary. But we could do nothing for some reason… We gave it up and went for a walk to Arbat - Oleg, Lena Manysheva, Andrey Golushko and me. I don't remember now who came up with the idea of a performance "Dolls". And it turned out to be great. Andrey and I guided two soft gutta-percha Gypsy dolls with inane eyes. The dolls were Oleg and Lena. I sang "Black Eyes" with a weak voice for Lena, while Andrey sang a bass part for Oleg. Our dolls would jump, wriggle, Oleg would fall down on one knee. It was very hilarious…"
"Later we traveled during vacations; we were in Kazakhstan, BAM that was very famous then. We spent nights in barracks. Somewhere in Sayany, we performed in a hut where there was just one lamp. There was a huge crowd. It was a resounding success. I will never forget that…"
One of the major events in their studentship was the so called "French evening", created and staged mainly by Oleg Menshikov. Almost everyone participated in his performance. The curtain was closed. There were melodies of French songs. A ray of light wandered about the stage. Finally the curtain was raised and spectators saw a portrait of "maman Lina" (that's how students called their French teacher). Next to it there fluttered French and Soviet flags.
Then there were nice drawings about a cafe somewhere in the middle of Paris. Somebody was singing, somebody was playing an accordion. They performed scenes from "Tartuf" in French, which seemed to be quite natural in a modern cafe. Every episode was kind of spilling over into the next one…
"Competing" with Eve Montan", Oleg Menshikov sang his songs. And according to others' opinions he didn't fail.
"He drew the whole performance", Victor Bokhan says. "Of course, we supplemented each other somehow. But we were a success thanks to Oleg's energy, his directing gift and good taste".
Menshikov's directing origin revealed itself also in skits, which the course was famous for. These skits are remembered in the school even now. The teachers say that there were attempts to repeat them, but nobody succeeded. The skits were directed by Oleg Menshikov. Humor, bent for parody helped him to notice some funny features in school life, in people's behavior, and all that he wonderfully used on stage.
…The school years in no way overshadowed music for Menshikov. Though his passion for music comedy became a bit weaker. He "betrayed" the light genre for symphony concerts in the Great Hall of Conservatory and in the Tchaikovsky Hall. His love for music unites Oleg with a young vocal teacher, Tatiana Fadeyevna Safarova, an extraordinary, deep and broad-minded person.
"When I first met Oleg, he attracted me with his bright musical talent, perfect musical memory, and of course professional grasp, rare for a student", says Safarova. "Naturally, his musical education helped him a lot, the fact he is a wonderful violinist, good pianist. But not only that. There was a splendid keenness in Oleg on everything he was doing. Working with him has always become a search: he's got a good imagination. I think that due to this he could so interestingly exist and still exists in dramatic art according to his own laws".
"He could excite even me, his teacher, draw into some work in such a way, that you become thoroughly engrossed in it. But sometimes it happened so that after just starting doing something Oleg could suddenly quit. Grow cool towards his own idea and will never turn to it again. Not once I noticed it. He doesn't come, finds some vague excuses for his absence, delays... At first I didn't understand what was going on, but later, having realized the reasons, never insisted".
"I think that after graduation this quality grew in him. And sometimes he didn't even think that his refusal of his own idea could affect the other people's lives. I know some particular examples, and moreover - in some situations I feel it was my fault. May be, it's a star quality?"
...In the senior years the students started to work on the extracts - some of them could later grow into a performance.
"We always tried to find parts for Oleg, where he could give all he has got", recalls Nikolay Nikolayevich Afonin. "I remember very well his Viktor in "Irkutsk story", later - Milovidov in Ostrovsky's comedy "At the Busy Spot", and there he not only acted, but sang excellently. We were approaching staging of large performance and I had an idea to stage "Invasion" by Leonov, having decided at once, that the leading part of Fedor Talanov will be performed by Oleg Menshikov. A very interesting character - complicated, dramatic, with an unexpected ending of hero's life. It seemed, what else to desire for a student? But after I have announced the cast, I notice: Oleg is very gloomy for some reason. And I don't understand anything. He seemed to receive a wonderful part, in his manner… What's the matter? I asked him: what's wrong? It turns out, he doesn't like my decision, not to his liking, he doesn't want to play Fedor Talanov, and that's it!"
"An actor's personality, though young and beginning, is always a very delicate substance. Carefully I started to investigate Oleg to understand what he wanted to play. And he almost staggered me - he asked the part of the German officer Verner, generally it's an episodic figure. But I agreed. And he starts to show such a huge interest in the work, that it is impossible not to respond in the same manner. We search for a character, manner of speech and movements. We both got the attraction, we started to enjoy what we were doing".
"As a result Oleg creates a masterpiece. Even then I wasn't afraid of that word, defining his work, and now I can repeat it. The whole school came to see Menshikov as Verner, it was so interesting to watch him. He played an arrogant, dullish, opinionated officer with a hidden irony, and very precisely".
"It was the whole life. The war seemed to be over long ago, Oleg and his generation was born 15 years later. Of course, Menshikov knew about that from books, may be, from his parents' narrations. But it's not a living, exact memory… But Menshikov's Verner was performed so precisely, frightfully, naturally, that I heard the real echo of war".
Already then Oleg knew exactly what he wanted: I mean the precise choice of his own material. We had another similar incident with him, which remembers Vladimir Bagratovich Monakhov.
"We started to work on "Innocent as Charged" by Ostrovsky", recalls Monakhov. "Who is to play Neznamov? Menshikov, of course… But he asks the part of Petya Milovzorov, character, far not as fat as Neznamov. I agreed: if you want it - play Petya. And we had an excellent Petya Milovzorov in the performance, with all the manners of the provincial premier, funny, self-assured, foolish, with exact details".
...In those years Oleg's imagination was captured by Andrey Mironov. No, Oleg didn't copy him - he generally never copied anyone, being all-sufficient in his nature, with a generous God's gift. He liked Mironov's musical manner, his plastics, and of course the ability not to stay in borders of a certain type. After "The Pokrovskie Gate" not once Menshikov will be compared to Andrey Mironov, though their closeness, in my opinion, lied not so in the likeness of the hero of Zorin's comedy "The Pokrovskie Gate" with Mironov's comic characters, as in the insistent striving for avoiding what had been already done, performed, and accepted by the spectator.
Perhaps, Oleg was closer to Andrey Mironov in his famous graduation work in the staging of "Stairway of Glory" by Scribe. Menshikov caught the delicate essence of Scribe's dramaturgy, it's tempo and rhythm; in this way he played a young lawyer, who suddenly makes a magical career but at the same time fully realizes what is happening to him.
"Actually now we have no actors able to play a drawing-room drama in such a manner", says Tatiana Safarova. "Oleg both fluttered and didn't avoid that earthly moral untidiness directly connected with the people breaking through to the politic Olympus. In this performance he also danced cancan brilliantly. Cancan is his long-standing passion. He played filling all the stage space".
The graduation performance "Stairway of Glory" was a sensation. It was performed on the affiliated stage of the Maly Theatre in Ordynka street. Mikhail Ivanovich Tsarev, director of the Maly, National Artist of the Soviet Union, who was not a frequent guest at such occasions, came to see the graduates. Having seen the performance, he exclaimed: "I take Menshikov to my theatre!"
It was a great honor, of course. But at the same time in such a big troupe the freshman had to go through "school of a young soldier". In other words, appear in crowd scenes, be pleased with occasional enters for other actors' parts, when somebody has fallen ill or left the theatre. And wait, wait, wait for a lucky strike: a real big work. Oleg Menshikov understood it perfectly well. He lacked neither intelligence, nor strong-willed character, nor sharp sense of independence and ability to manage the situation. Once, still at his school years, he and his schoolmates were sent to the Maly theatre for training. But once after the lecture the students were late. Not willing to find out the reasons, director Vitaly Ivanov addressed the students in a rather rude manner. Then Menshikov, pale, with sharpened face, stood up and called the others:
"We are leaving". And headed to the doors. His schoolmates left with him.
From the very beginning he demanded recognition and respect, not willing to be satisfied with little. That's why the invitation to the Maly Theatre, which he however accepted, was not that brilliant, as it might seem to the others.
By that time he already had three roles in cinema behind, and the shooting of his forth film was about to begin. ("I Wait and Hope", "Kinfolk", "The Pokrovskie Gate"). He was known already…
Rector of the school, Nikolay Nikolayevich Afonin:
"…We had a gifted, good student Menshikov, he studied well, sang perfectly, danced, played music... Further everything was up to him - talented and intelligent".
Course-master, Professor Vladimir Bagratovich Monakhov: "The gift shined in him from the very beginning. Attractive, evidently outstanding, energetic. He knew how to bring it all about".
Vocal teacher, assistant professor Tatiana Fadeyevna Safarova: "During his school years I saw Oleg rather a character actor. No, not a hero. Even with his plasticity, musical talent, artistry, I thought he lacked something for a hero. And in the graduation performances he chose character parts. Well, it means, now such hero is in demand…"
Schoolmate Viktor Bokhan: "In those years we made no forecasts about each other. Even when we performed the graduation plays and received offers to work in this or that theatre, we were just happy our boys and girls succeeded. Oleg had several roles in cinema by the time he graduated. They brought him fame, popularity, especially Kostik from "The Pokrovskie Gate". And I think he is still adored by the viewers. You couldn't but like Oleg - his liveliness, mobility, bead speech, when the words seem to roll as beads, even the fact he doesn't pronounce letter "s" quite correctly - all these are the sides of his charm… Plus character, will. May be, the present result is what should've happened. Everybody has his destiny. And Oleg Menshikov too…"