Nikolay Cherkasov

Nikolai Cherkasov

Cherkasov in Alexander Nevsky, 1938
Born (1903-07-27)27 July 1903
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died 14 September 1966(1966-09-14) (aged 63)
Leningrad, Soviet Union
Occupation Actor
Years active 19181965

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 Petrograd and 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.

The image of Cherkasov in the role of Alexander Nevsky is on the Soviet Order of Alexander Nevsky, because there are no known lifetime portraits of Nevsky.[1]

Selected filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1936 Girl Friends White army Officer
1936 The Children of Captain Grant Jacques Paganel
1937 Pyotr Pervyy Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia
1938 Treasure Island Billy Bonns
1938 Friends Beta the Ossesian
1938 Alexander Nevsky Alexander Nevsky
1939 Lenin in 1918 Maxim Gorky
1944 Ivan the Terrible Ivan the Terrible
1947 Pirogov
1946 In the Name of Life
1949 Alexander Popov Alexander Popov
1949 Ivan Pavlov Maxim Gorky
1949 The Battle of Stalingrad Franklin D. Roosevelt
1952 Rimsky-Korsakov Stasov
1957 Don Quixote Don Quixote

References

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