Stevo Žigon

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Stevo Žigon
Stevo Žigon

Stevo Žigon (Serbian Cyrillic: Стево Жигон) (b. 8 December 1926, Ljubljana, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - d. 28 December 2005, Belgrade, Serbia, Serbia-Montenegro) was a famous Serbian actor, theatre director, and writer.

In 1941, aged 14, as a member of Communist Youth League, he participated in many sabotage actions. In 1942, Žigon was captured and imprisoned at Dachau (his prisoner number was 61185), where he learned German.

He studied acting in Ljubljana and Leningrad. He graduated in 1952 from the Academy for Theatre Arts in Belgrade. On faculty for acting in Belgrade he was one of the first assistants. Because of his knowledge of the German language and manners, he often played cynical and cold German officers. He was best-known for playing "Krüger", chief of Belgrade Gestapo, in the popular 1970s TV series Otpisani and Povratak otpisanih. His wife, Jelena, and daughter, Ivana, are also actresses.

In 1968, at the time of the student demonstrations in Belgrade, Žigon emerged and performed Dante's Death; he played Robespierre for the students. The speech he made while his character was on trial caused the assembled students to explode with enthusiastic applause.[citation needed]