Mikhail Ulyanov

Biography

Mikhail Alexandrovich Ulyanov (born in Bergamak, 20 November 1927 – died in Moscow, 26 March 2007) was a Soviet and Russian actor who became one of the most recognised figures of Soviet theatre and cinema after the Second World War. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1969 and Hero of Socialist Labour in 1986, and in 1982 he received a special prize at the Venice Film Festival. His career brought him several dozen stage roles and around seventy film parts, and he also directed for both stage and screen and wrote books about his craft.

Raised in Siberia, he spent his childhood and youth in the town of Tara in Omsk Oblast. After failing entrance exams in Moscow, he moved to Omsk in 1944 and trained for two years in the studio of the city's drama theatre. In 1946 he entered the Schukin Theatre School in Moscow, and from 1950 he worked at the Vakhtangov Theatre, which remained central to his life. There he played Rogozhin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot, one of his most admired stage parts, and in 1987 he became the theatre's artistic director, a post he held until his death.

On screen his range was wide, although he was most often cast as political leaders and military men. He played Lenin on several occasions and, above all, Marshal Georgy Zhukov in Liberation and other war films, a role critics and audiences regarded as the most memorable of his film career. His character Yegor Trubnikov in The Chairman became a Soviet classic, and he co-directed The Brothers Karamazov, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also starred in Theme and Private Life, films that won major awards in Berlin and Venice. In his later years he was praised for playing Julius Caesar in a screen version of Shakespeare, Pontius Pilate in The Master and Margarita, and a veteran sniper in The Rifleman of the Voroshilov Regiment.

Ulyanov also wrote five books about his profession and his life, and his name is linked to Russian cultural life beyond the screen. He died in 2007 in a Moscow hospital, from kidney failure that developed during the final stage of cancer. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery with military honours. An Arctic oil tanker and a theatre in Tara bear his name, and a monument to him was unveiled in Tara in 2012. His legacy lies mainly in the memory of his generation of Soviet performers and in the historical figures he made familiar to audiences.

Key films

• The Brothers Karamazov (1969), which he co-directed and in which he played Dmitri Karamazov.
• The Theme (1979), as the writer Kim Yesenin.
• Private Life (1982), as Sergei Abrikosov, a role that earned a Venice prize.
• Liberation (1969-1971), as Marshal Zhukov.
• Stalingrad (1990), again as Zhukov.
• The Rifleman of the Voroshilov Regiment (1999), as an avenging veteran.