Oleg Tabakov
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Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov (Russian: Олег Павлович Табаков) (born August 17, 1935 in Saratov) is one of the most recognizable Russian actors and the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theatre.
Tabakov studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School. Upon graduating from the school, he became one of the founding fathers of the Sovremennik Theatre. He administrated the Sovremennik until 1982, when he moved to the Moscow Art Theatre, where he has played Moliere and Salieri for over 20 years.
In 1986, Tabakov persuaded his students to form the Tabakov Studio attached to the Moscow Art Theatre. This studio has since grown into the most popular theatre in the Russian capital and spawned careers of some of the best known Russian actors, including Yevgeny Mironov, Sergey Bezrukov, and Vladimir Mashkov. Tabakov also worked in numerous foreign countries, spreading his theatre's ideals abroad.
Tabakov's movie career paralleled the theatrical. He was featured in Grigori Chukhrai's Clear Skies (1961), Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace (1968), TV series Seventeen Instants of Spring (1973) and D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers (1978), the Oscar-winning Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears (1980), Nikita Mikhalkov's Oblomov (1981) and Dark Eyes (1986), and the mock ostern A Man from the Boulevard des Capuchines (1987), to name only a few. He also lent his voice to a number of animated films, including to the talking cat Matroskin in Three from Buttermilk Village and its sequels.
