Dead | Actor Antti Litja has died

Actor Antti Litja is dead. She died of a sudden serious illness in a nursing home at the age of 84 last night, Litja’s relatives tell news agency STT.

Litja had a great career in theater, films and television.

In the 1970s, Litja’s cooperation as a film director Risto Jarvan with three leading roles in popular comedies The man who couldn’t say no, Holiday mixed Year of the Rabbit.

“I didn’t have to do them by doing, but I could improvise in parts quite freely. Jarva just said that what must not be done,” Litja described the filming In his 80th anniversary interview for HS in 2018.

Litjana the quality of acting stood out from a young age. He favored scarce means, brought a strong presence even from the sidelines, and controlled an almost invisible sense of humor.

Critics have sometimes characterized Litja as a true master of comedy. In 2014, Litja also cultivated serious-looking wackiness Mind blowing– in the title role of the film, which was his last film work.

The movie was the most watched of the year, and Litja was awarded the Jussi statue for the male lead. Litja started Tuomas Kyrön as the interpreter of the hair-hatted ram created in his beginnings in radio broadcasts.

Litja was still scheduled to take the stage Mind blowing-play, but the rehabilitation from a brain infarction in 2014 took longer, and he decided to leave acting in 2016.

Big ones Litja had time to perform on theater stages for almost five decades. He acted in the Tampere Workers’ Theater in 1963–1975, in the Helsinki City Theater in 1986–1987 and 1995–2012, in the Tampere Theater in 1991–1995 and in the National Theater in 1975–1984 and 2012–2014.

In the 21st century, Litja interpreted several historical figures both on television and on the theater stage. Mannerheim he performed in several productions, and they also became acquaintances Urho Kekkonen, Mauno Koiviston, Martti Ahtisaaren and Ahti Karjalainen characters.

“At first I thought that I could never imagine myself as Mannerheim, but my colleagues said to just let it go,” Litja recalled to STT in 2008.

In 2008, he joined the highly popular Helsinki City Theatre Quartet-to the play Pentti Siimesen in place of Kyllikki Forssell, Ritva Valkaman and Lasse Pöystin alongside.

Litja was born on February 21, 1938 in Antrea, Karelia, and grew up in Etelä-Hämee. The son of an evacuee family arrived in Helsinki at the age of 16, where he found at least one place he felt like his own – movie theaters.

At first, he did odd jobs, including as a car mechanic and electrician, until in 1960 the door to the theater school opened.

“The theater did give my life a direction. I had realized that the nerve would not be able to withstand the mechanical labor jobs that my father also had to do until old age,” he said in his 80th anniversary interview for HS.

Read more: For Antti Litja, the theater showed the direction of life – “An actor’s job is like a lazy man’s job. It suited me”