Nikolai Cherkasov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov (Russian: Никола́й Константи́нович Черка́сов; July 27, 1903 – September 14, 1966), was a Soviet actor and a People's Artist of the Soviet Union.

From 1919 he was a mime artist in Petrograd's Maryinsky Theatre, the Bolshoi Theatre and elsewhere. After graduating from the Institute of Stage Arts in 1926, he began acting in the Young Spectator's Theatre in Leningrad.

Cherkasov was one of Stalin's favorite actors and played title roles in Sergei Eisenstein's monumental sound films Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Parts I & II of Ivan the Terrible (1945 & 1958). He also played Jacques Paganel in the memorable 1936 adaptation of Jules Verne's The Children of Captain Grant. In the 1947 comedy Springtime Cherkasov appeared alongside other icons of Stalinist cinema, Lyubov Orlova and Faina Ranevskaya. For the role of Alexander Popov in the film Alexander Popov in 1951 he received a Stalin Prize of the second degree. In 1957 Cherkasov portrayed Don Quixote in director Grigori Kozintsev's screen adaptation of that novel.

In 1947, Cherkasov was named a People's Artist of the Soviet Union. He wrote his memoirs, "Notes of a Soviet Actor" in 1951. He died in 1966 and is buried in the Cemetery of Masters at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

[edit] External links

• Nikolai Cherkasov at the Internet Movie Database