It was at the height of his Soviet fame and fortune when Kramarov, in 1979, startled the Soviet authorities with his application for emigration. By this time he had made 42 films and was one of the Soviet Union's most popular film stars. His application rejected, Kramarov's films were suppressed nationwide; his film career was dead. He found his only outlet to continue acting was a theatre of refuseniks, where the passports of prospective audience members were checked on arrival at a performance.