Urmas Ilmarovich Ott - Estonian journalist, TV presenter, star of Soviet and Estonian television. His projects have received recognition not only in our country, but also abroad. He was awarded the highest Estonian television awards in the field of journalism and the development of national culture, and the prize of the Union of Journalists of the USSR for the Television Acquaintance program.
Ott's programs about the life of stars were very popular during the perestroika period and were aired on Soviet and Estonian television. In a relaxed atmosphere and on equal terms, he talked with famous pop singers, writers, and creative intelligentsia. His style of conducting the transfer was called provocative, and many famous people refused to come to him on the air. He was able to put anyone in an uncomfortable position and turn the conversation so that the facts cited by the biographies of the stars began to turn against them. He knew the secrets of many of his interlocutors, and his life remained unknown to anyone.
Biography of Urmas Ott
Urmas was born in 1955, on April 23, in Estonia, in the small town of Otepää, where his whole family lived. His mother was engaged in his upbringing. Father passed away when the boy was still very young. In his mother's arms he and his younger sister remained.
The boy was no different from his peers. He went to kindergarten early, then to school. After joining the pioneers, he began to actively participate in all school activities.
Urmas always wanted to be a leader and the first in everything. In the lower grades, he stood out for his desire to collect as much waste paper, scrap metal as possible, to take first place in sports competitions and pioneer shows. The surprise for all his friends and teachers was that in high school, carried away by the Beatles, the boy grew long hair, tried to learn how to play the guitar, began to skip lessons, and in the end completely forgot about his studies.
Urmas received the certificate with great difficulty, but after graduation he still managed to enter the Pedagogical University of Tallinn, where he received higher education. In addition, Urmas went to study for the courses of television journalists, where his teacher repeatedly told the young man that if he becomes more serious about his future profession, he can make a good journalist.
Immediately after graduating from university and courses, Urmas enters the army, where he becomes the soloist of the ensemble, and then the host of concerts. His creative biography began with these performances.
Career and creativity
After the service, Urmas gets on television, where he becomes the announcer of the news program. His career is fast moving up. After some time, he begins to broadcast the ABC of Variety and at the same time working on a new TV show format, creates the Television Acquaintance program, after which Urmas becomes one of the most sought-after television presenters and journalists in Estonia. Although he himself said that nothing like his biography existed, that he was an ordinary modest presenter, and everything else was just a myth and a story invented by someone.
After some time, Urmas with his program was invited to Moscow on Central Television. The management was sure that the image of an intelligent, educated, handsome young man with a charming smile and a sharp tongue would definitely be accepted by the audience and soon he would become a popular TV presenter not only in his homeland, but also in the USSR. Thus began the work of Urmas on Central Television.
Filming of the program took place in Estonia and not all of its releases were allowed to be shown in the USSR, where strict censorship existed at that time.
Urmas invited the popular actress Lyudmila Gurchenko to one of his programs. The interview with the star turned out to be very unexpected and contained a lot of information about which it was possible to read only in the yellow press. They began to talk about the TV presenter as a person who, on the basis of scandals and intrigues, was able to make a unique TV show format, which had never been on screens before. He allowed himself to ask the famous actress about secret admirers, her novels with famous musicians, and even about the involvement and mafia structures of her husband, Joseph Kobzon.
A few months later, the popularity of the TV presenter and his scandalous program became so high that viewers and colleagues did not miss a single issue. Urmas created on the screen a new image of the presenter, the purpose of which was to familiarize the viewer with the western style of conducting programs and the European style. He constantly wrote new scripts, came up with new questions and compiled his own rating of celebrities whom he wanted to see as his interlocutors in a television project.
Gradually, Ott began to invite only those to whom he felt sympathy, believing that only in this way would he be able to feel free and relaxed on the program and ask any questions. Only the most successful and famous people got on his transfer. Perhaps this criterion allowed Urmas to gain fame and love of the public, to draw attention to his work for a long time.
The provocative format of the program and the "uncomfortable" questions for some celebrity figures scared away many from participating in his project. It is said that some leading politicians and representatives of the elite were simply afraid of him. But those who participated in his programs recalled working together with warmth and gratitude.
Urmas was loved by friends and colleagues, he was the center of the company and could charm anyone with his talent for conducting conversations, relaxedness and some impudence, present in him from his youth. Many believed that Ott had many friends, but in fact he was very lonely and devoted his whole life to television, which became his only friend, completely replaced his family.
The popular program appeared on television for many years, but in 1993 it was closed, and Urmas left for Estonia, where he continued his creative activity. He released a series of programs in which he met and talked with artists and artists of Estonia. But they soon closed it.
Urmas suffered a lot of events and in 1998 he had a heart attack. A year later, unknown persons attacked Ott and inflicted numerous stab wounds on him. Whether it was an order or an accident, no one still knows.
After restoring health, Urmas again comes to the capital of Russia and becomes the host of the program “Urmas Ott with
“It was also based on meetings with famous people, but the shooting took place in the popular metropolitan restaurant“ Prague. ”Urmas believed that thanks to a relaxed atmosphere and a few glasses of wine, a person becomes more talkative and even answers“ uncomfortable ”questions.
Ott's new project lasted less than a year. The reasons were unknown, but Urmas himself suggested that someone from the leadership of the TV channel did not like him, and his questions to the interlocutors and their answers were too frank.
Over the next few years, Urmas led several more television projects, but they were no longer as successful as Television Dating.
Personal life of a TV reporter
The famous journalist did not like to talk about himself. He tried not to give any interviews to the press, believing that the information received by journalists about him and his life was, as a result, completely distorted, and the work he was interested in was interesting only to himself. The reason could also be that Urmas did not know Russian well and spoke with an accent, therefore his interviews were not always well-perceived by ear and the meaning of some phrases could be misinterpreted by the interviewers.
Ott preferred loneliness and tried not to tell anyone about his state of mind. The only love of his life is television.
Urmas never had a family or children. He said that he was not ready to engage in raising a child and enter into a serious relationship, and that he was happy and completely happy with his life.
