Alexander Vertinsky sang songs the like of which had never been heard before: tender, decadent, theatrical. He invented a Pierrot persona — white greasepaint, black costume, the intonation of a man in too much pain to speak plainly. It worked.
He was born in Kiev in 1889, lost his parents early, and was raised by aunts. In Moscow he became an actor, then a singer. During the First World War he served as a medical orderly; afterward came the cabaret. "The Little Creole," "The Lilac Negro," "Your Fingers Smell of Incense" — songs of love, death, and exotic fantasy.
After the revolution he emigrated: Constantinople, Berlin, Paris, Shanghai — twenty years in foreign lands. In 1943 he returned to the USSR, with Stalin's personal permission. He acted in films and gave concerts. The Soviet authorities tolerated him as an exotic curiosity — too famous abroad to touch.
He died in Leningrad in 1957, after a concert. His heart gave out; he was sixty-seven. His daughters, Anastasia and Marianna Vertinskaya, became well-known actresses.