Yevgeny Samoylov
Encyclopedia
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
) was a Soviet actor who gained prominence in youthful heroic parts and was named a People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Nomenclature and significance :...
in 1974. He is the father of Tatiana Samoilova.
Samoilov is not related to the famous Samoilov family that dominated the Maly Theatre
Maly Theatre (Moscow)
Maly Theatre is a drama theater in Moscow, Russia. Established in 1806 and operating on its present site on the Theatre Square since 1824, the theatre traces its history to the Moscow University drama company, established in 1756...
in the 19th century. He was educated in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
, starting his career at a local theatre. In 1934 he was noticed by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
who invited him to join his own troupe in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Samoilov worked with Meyerhold for four years. He got his most substantial roles in Meyerhold's theatre playing Hernani
Hernani (drama)
----Hernani is a drama by the French romantic author Victor Hugo.The play opened in Paris on February 25, 1830...
in Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's drama and Chatsky in Woe from Wit
Woe from Wit
Woe from Wit is Alexander Griboyedov's comedy in verse, satirizing the society of post-Napoleonic Moscow, or, as a high official in the play styled it, "a pasquinade on Moscow."The play, written in 1823 in the countryside and in Tiflis, was not passed by the censorship for the stage, and...
.
When Meyerhold was arrested and purged in 1938, Samoilov was in the middle of rehearsing for Pushkin's Boris Godunov (the role of Grigory Otrepyev) and Ostrovsky's How the Steel Was Tempered
How the Steel Was Tempered
How the Steel Was Tempered is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky during Joseph Stalin's era. Pavel Korchagin is the central character.- Analysis :...
(the role of Pavka Korchagin). His acting career seemed to be unhampered, however. Samoilov's appearance as the Soviet commander Shchors
Nikolay Shchors
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Shchors was a Red Army commander, member of the Russian Communist Party, renowned for his personal courage during the Russian Civil War and sometimes being called the Ukrainian Chapayev. In 1918-1919 he fought against the new established Ukrainian government in Kyiv...
in Alexander Dovzhenko
Alexander Dovzhenko
Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko , was a Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director of Ukrainian descent. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin.- Biography :...
's film of the same name
Shchors (film)
Shchors is a 1939 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. Commissioned by Joseph Stalin, the film is a biography of the partisan leader and Ukrainian Bolshevik Nikolai Shchors. Shchors is played by Yevgeny Samoylov ....
won him the Stalin Prize for 1941. He proceeded to become an iconic film actor of the Stalin era, playing against Lyubov Orlova
Lyubov Orlova
Lyubov Petrovna Orlova, was the first recognized star of Soviet cinema, famous theatre actress and a gifted singer.She was born to a middle class family in Zvenigorod near Moscow and grew up in Yaroslavl...
in Bright Path and Marina Ladynina in Six O'Clock after the War is Over (1944, Stalin Prize). One of his favourite film roles was that of General Skobelev
Mikhail Skobelev
Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev was a Russian general famous for his conquest of Central Asia and heroism during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Dressed in white uniform and mounted on a white horse, and always in the thickest of the fray, he was known and adored by his soldiers as the "White...
in The Heroes of Shipka (1955).
After the Meyerhold theatre was disbanded, Samoilov moved to Nikolay Okhlopkov
Nikolay Okhlopkov
Nikolay Pavlovich Okhlopkov was a Soviet actor and theatre director who patterned his work after Meyerhold.He was born in Irkutsk, Siberia and started his acting career there in 1918...
's Mayakovsky Theatre, where he would work until the director's death in 1967. His role of Oleg Koshevoy in the first stage version of The Young Guard won him another Stalin Prize. One of the highlights of his career was Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
in Okhlopkov's production of 1954. It was the first post-war production of the play in the country and led to Okhlopkov's joint work with Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
. In 1961, he was cast as Jason
Jason
Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...
in the first-ever Russian production of Medea
Medea (play)
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
by Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
. Six years later, he appeared in the role opposite Aspasia Papathanassiou of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
In 1967 Samoilov rejoined his colleagues from the Meyerhold Theatre in the Maly Theatre
Maly theatre
The Maly Theatre, or Mali Theatre, may refer to one of several different theatres:* The Maly Theatre , also known as The State Academic Maly Theatre of Russia, in Moscow...
. The greatest success of his declining years was the role of Prince Ivan Shuisky in Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1973). "It was a genuine Christian man, living in Christ; I have never seen anything like this", says Georgy Sviridov
Georgy Sviridov
Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov was a Soviet Russian neoromantic composer....
, who composed music for the production. Samoilov's last film roles came in the movies directed by Sergei Bondarchuk
Sergei Bondarchuk
Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and actor.- Biography :Born in Belozerka, in the Kherson Governorate, Sergei Bondarchuk spent his childhood in the cities of Yeysk and Taganrog, graduating from the Taganrog School Number 4 in 1938. His first performance as an...
, such as Waterloo and Boris Godunov. The actor celebrated his 90th birthday acting on the stage of the Maly Theatre in 2002.