Alexander Borisovich Godunov (Russian: Александр Борисович Годунов; November 28, 1949 – May 18, 1995) was a Russian-American ballet dancer and film actor. He was a member of the Bolshoi Ballet and became the troupe's Premier danseur. In 1979, he defected to the United States. Soviet overseers for the troupe immediately put his wife on a flight back to the Soviet Union. Initially the United States did not allow the flight to leave, resulting in a diplomatic incident between the two nations. Godunov joined the American Ballet Theatre and danced as a principal dancer until 1982, when he had a falling-out with Mikhail Baryshnikov, the director of the company. A press release for the American Ballet Theatre stated a change in the troupe's repertoire did not provide him with sufficient roles. Following his release Godunov traveled with his own troupe, and danced as a guest artist around the world with a number of prominent ballet troupes. He also began working in Hollywood as a film actor. Godunov's acting roles were varied, including a good-natured Amish farmer in Witness (1985), a comically narcissistic symphony conductor in The Money Pit (1986), and an unforgettably violent German terrorist in Die Hard (1988).[10] He passed on roles which typecast him as a dancer or another heavy as in Die Hard. Godunov drank alcohol to excess, and this became a problem as he got older. On May 18, 1995, Godunov's friends became concerned when he had been uncharacteristically quiet with his phone calls. A nurse who had not heard from him since May 8 went to his home in the Shoreham Towers, West Hollywood, California, where his body was discovered. Godunov's death was determined to be due to complications from hepatitis secondary to chronic alcoholism. Following his death Godunov's ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. A memorial to him at Gates Mortuary in Los Angeles is engraved with the epitaph "His future remained in the past."
