Akim Tamiroff
Akim Tamiroff 
| |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff |
| Birthplace | Tiflis |
| Birth date | 29 October 1899 |
| Death place | Palm Springs |
| Death date | 1972/09/17 |
| Death year | 1972 |
| Ethnicities | Armenian |
| Dialects | Eastern Armenian |
| Spouses | Tamara Shayne |
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (Russian: Аким Михайлович Тамиров; birth name` Hovakim, Armenian: Հովակիմ; 29 October 1899 – 17 September 1972) was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Biography
Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire (now Tbilisi, Georgia), of Armenian ancestry.[1] He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors and decided to stay.[2][3] Tamiroff managed to develop a career in Hollywood despite his thick Russian accent.
Film career
Tamiroff's film debut came in 1932 in an uncredited role in Okay, America!. He performed in several more uncredited roles until 1935, when he co-starred in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. The following year, he was cast in the title role in The General Died at Dawn, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He appeared in the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome and the 1938 proto-noir Dangerous to Know opposite Anna May Wong, frequently singled out as his best role.
In the following decade, he appeared in such films as The Buccaneer (1938), The Great McGinty (1940), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Tortilla Flat (1942), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), His Butler's Sister (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). In later years, Tamiroff appeared in Ocean's 11 (1960), Topkapi (1964), Alphaville (1965) and had a long collaboration with Orson Welles including Touch of Evil (1958), Mr Arkadin (1955), The Trial (1962) and Welles' unfinished version of Don Quixote, in which he played Sancho Panza.
Legacy
While Tamiroff may not be a household name now, his malapropistic performance as the boss in The Great McGinty inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov, the male half of the villainous husband-and-wife team Boris and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. He was also spoofed in a 1969 episode of the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf entitled "The Stand-in" in which a frog named "Akim Toadanoff" directs a movie on Living Island.
Personal
Tamiroff died on September 17, 1972 from cancer. He was mentioned in J. D. Salinger's "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (1942 New Yorker) He is also mentioned in The Moviegoer, Walker Percy's novel of 1961.
Filmography
- Okay, America! (1932) (uncredited film debut)
- Queen Christina (1933) (uncredited)
- The Scarlet Empress (1934) (uncredited)
- The Merry Widow (1934) (uncredited)
- The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
- Naughty Marietta (1935)
- China Seas (1935)
- The Gay Deception (1935)
- The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
- The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
- Desire (1936)
- Anthony Adverse (1936)
- The General Died at Dawn (1936)
- High, Wide, and Handsome (1937)
- King of Gamblers (1937)
- The Buccaneer (1938)
- Dangerous to Know (1938)
- Spawn of the North (1938)
- Union Pacific (1939)
- The Magnificent Fraud (1939)
- Untamed (1940)
- The Way of All Flesh (1940)
- The Great McGinty (1940)
- North West Mounted Police (1940)
- New York Town (1941)
- The Corsican Brothers (1941)
- Tortilla Flat (1942)
- Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
- His Butler's Sister (1943)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
- The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)
- Dragon Seed (1944)
- Can't Help Singing (1944)
- Pardon My Past (1945)
- A Scandal in Paris (1946)
- The Gangster (1947)
- Outpost in Morocco (1949)
- Desert Legion (1953)
- They Who Dare (1954)
- You Know What Sailors Are (1954)
- Mr. Arkadin (1955)
- The Black Sleep (1956)
- Anastasia (1956)
- Yangtse Incident (1957)
- Touch of Evil (1958)
- Me and the Colonel (1958)
- Ocean's 11 (1960)
- Romanoff and Juliet (1961)
- The Reluctant Saint (1962)
- The Trial (1962)
- Topkapi (1964)
- Lord Jim (1965)
- Alphaville (1965)
- Hotel Paradiso (1966)
- Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966)
- After the Fox (1966)
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1966) episode "The Jingle Bells Affair" as Premier Georgi Koz
- Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969)
- 100 Rifles (1969)
- The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
- Don Quixote (unfinished, filmed between 1955–1969)
References
External links
Template:Portal Template:Commons
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- Akim Tamiroff at WFMU
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- Akim Tamiroff at Katz's Film Encyclopedia
- Akim Tamiroff at Great Character Actors
- Template:Find a Grave
Source of article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akim_Tamiroff