Humorist. Real name Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg. Born into a poor Jewish family from Odessa, he met fellow writer Yevgeny Petrov in 1926, when both were on the staff of the railway workers' newspaper "The Whistle." Their first collaboration, the picaresque novel "The Twelve Chairs" (1928), was an immediate international success, and its irrepressible antihero, Ostap Bender, remains one of the most popular characters in Russian fiction. It has been filmed several times, notably by Mel Brooks in 1969. Although Bender was killed off at the end of "The Twelve Chairs", Ilf and Petrov resurrected him for a sequel, "The Golden Calf" (1931). They later wrote humorous sketches for "Pravda." In 1936 the duo went on a cross-country automobile tour of the United States; this resulted in their book "One-Storied America," a witty and not entirely unsympathetic look at American life. The rigors of the trip undermined Ilf's already poor health, and he died of tuberculosis in Moscow at the age of 39.
Humorist. Real name Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg. Born into a poor Jewish family from Odessa, he met fellow writer Yevgeny Petrov in 1926, when both were on the staff of the railway workers' newspaper "The Whistle." Their first collaboration, the picaresque novel "The Twelve Chairs" (1928), was an immediate international success, and its irrepressible antihero, Ostap Bender, remains one of the most popular characters in Russian fiction. It has been filmed several times, notably by Mel Brooks in 1969. Although Bender was killed off at the end of "The Twelve Chairs", Ilf and Petrov resurrected him for a sequel, "The Golden Calf" (1931). They later wrote humorous sketches for "Pravda." In 1936 the duo went on a cross-country automobile tour of the United States; this resulted in their book "One-Storied America," a witty and not entirely unsympathetic look at American life. The rigors of the trip undermined Ilf's already poor health, and he died of tuberculosis in Moscow at the age of 39.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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