Akim Tamiroff

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Akim Tamiroff

from the trailer for Fiesta (1947).

Born

October 29, 1899
Tiflis, Georgia, Russian Empire

Died

September 17, 1972 (aged 72)
Palm Springs, California

Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture 1944 For Whom the Bell Tolls

Akim Tamiroff (October 29, 1899, Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia - September 17, 1972, Palm Springs, California) was the first Golden Globe Award-winning actor for Best Supporting Actor. He was born of Armenian ethnicity, trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the US in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors and decided to stay. [1][2] Tamiroff managed to develop a career in Hollywood despite his thick Russian accent.

Tamiroff's film debut came in 1932 in an uncredited role in Okay, America!. He performed in several more uncredited roles until 1935, when he co-starred in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. The following year, he was cast in the title role in The General Died at Dawn, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He appeared in the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome and the 1938 proto-noir Dangerous to Know opposite Anna May Wong, frequently singled out as his best role.

In the following decade, he appeared in such films as The Buccaneer (1938), The Great McGinty (1940), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Tortilla Flat (1942), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). In later years, Tamiroff appeared in Touch of Evil, Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Topkapi (1964).

While Tamiroff may not be a household name in the present day, his malapropistic performance as the boss in The Great McGinty inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov, the male half of the villainous husband-and-wife team Boris and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Tamiroff died on September 17, 1972 from cancer.

[edit] Partial filmography

Okay, America! (1932) (uncredited film debut)
Queen Christina (1933) (uncredited)
The Scarlet Empress (1934) (uncredited)
The Merry Widow (1934) (uncredited)
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
Naughty Marietta (1935)
China Seas (1935)
The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
Desire (1936)
Anthony Adverse (1936)
The General Died at Dawn (1936)
High, Wide, and Handsome (1937)
The Buccaneer (1938)
Dangerous to Know (1938)
Spawn of the North (1938)
Union Pacific (1939)
The Way of All Flesh (1940)
The Great McGinty (1940)
North West Mounted Police (1940)
The Corsican Brothers (1941)
Tortilla Flat (1942)

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)
Dragon Seed (1944)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Mr. Arkadin (1955)
The Black Sleep (1956)
Anastasia (1956)
Yangtse Incident (1957)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Me and the Colonel (1958)
Ocean's Eleven (1960)
Romanoff and Juliet (1961)
The Reluctant Saint (1962)
The Trial (1962)
Topkapi (1964)
Lord Jim (1965)
Alphaville (1965)
Hotel Paradiso (1966)
Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966)
After the Fox (1966)
Don Quixote (unfinished, released 1992)

Awards
Preceded by --	Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture 1944 for For Whom the Bell Tolls	Succeeded by Barry Fitzgerald for Going My Way