Born on September 14, 1941 in the Jewish family of theater critic Simon Davidovich Dreyden (1905-1991) and actress Zinaida Ivanovna Dontsova (1902-1971) in Novosibirsk, where his parents were evacuated from Leningrad.
In 1962 he graduated from the acting department of the Leningrad Institute of Music and Cinematography.
He was an actor at the Leningrad Theater of Miniatures under the direction of Arkady Raikin.
In cinema - since 1960.
In 1988, in the credits of the film "Fountain", he called himself Dontsov in memory of his mother, thereby wanting to separate his work in the theater from his work in cinema. He returned to the surname Dreyden only in the film “Russian Ark” by Alexander Sokurov.
Passed away on May 8, 2023.
