High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Valentin Yosifovich Gaft is a Russian and Soviet actor, People's Artist of Russia (1984). Valentin Gaft was born in Moscow to a family of a lawyer Iosif Romanovich Gaft (1907 1969) and Gita Davydovna Gaft (1908 1993). The family moved to Moscow from Poltava, Ukraine. During the World War II Iosif Gaft served in the Red Army finishing with the rank of Major. Valentin Gaft graduated from the School-Studio at the Moscow Art Theatre (1953-1957). Among the students of the same course were future popular actors Oleg Tabakov and Maya Menglet. Gaft started his work for the cinema in 1956 in the Mikhail Romm's film Murder on Dante Street.