Ivan Fedorovich Kudryavtsev was born on September 12, 1932 in the village of Valamaz, Seltinsky District (Udmurt ASSR). After finishing school, he worked on a collective farm and a logging company.

At the age of 19, he moved to Izhevsk. He worked as an attendant at a traveling zoo exhibition. In 1951-1956, he served as an assistant to circus artists and was a student of Timofey Sidorkin. While with the circus in Irkutsk, he bought a bear cub from hunters and named him Gosha, and began training him himself. In 1956, in one of the rural clubs in Moldova, he made his independent debut with the bear Gosha, and on December 13, 1956, he and Gosha first entered the arena of the Chisinau Circus. He worked in the Moscow group "Circus on Stage", in a traveling circus. In 1957, he was a participant in the first circus cavalcade on the Moscow-Donbass-Kuban route.

Since 1958, he performed in the Soyuzgoscirk system. For three decades, until his death, Gosha remained one of the brightest stars of the Soviet circus. In his act, Gosha the bear did everything himself, as if on his own initiative. Gosha the bear starred in several documentaries and feature films: "The Bear", "The Clubfoot Friend", "The King of the Arena". Gosha the bear became the emblem of the Izhevsk Circus.