Nikolay Cherkasov

Nikolai Cherkasov
Cherkasov in Alexander Nevsky
Born	(1903-07-27)27 July 1903 St Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	14 September 1966(1966-09-14) (aged 63) Leningrad, Soviet Union
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1918–1965

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

Career

He was born in Saint Petersburg (later Leningrad; it reverted to Saint Petersburg some years after his death). 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 & 1946; though Part II was not officially released until 1958 for political reasons). 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 1941, Cherkasov was awarded the Stalin Prize; in 1947, he was named a People's Artist of the Soviet Union. He wrote his memoirs, "Notes of a Soviet Actor" in 1951. He died in Leningrad in 1966 and was buried in the Cemetery of Masters at that city's Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Selected filmography

External links

• Nikolay Cherkasov at the Internet Movie Database