Innokenty Smoktunovsky
Soviet actor famed for Hamlet and Prince Myshkin roles.
Innokenty Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor, named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1974 and a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1990. He is best known for his acclaimed portrayal of Prince Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsev's 1964 film, which won him the Lenin Prize in 1965 and drew praise from Laurence Olivier.
Quick Facts
- Birth Name
- Innokenty Mikhailovich Smoktunovich
- Birth Date
- 28 March 1925
- Birth Place
- Tatyanovka, Tomsk Governorate, RSFSR, Soviet Union
- Death Date
- 3 August 1994 · 1925 · 03 · 28
- Death Place
- Moscow, Russia
- Resting Place
- Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow
- Occupation
- Actor
- Years Active
- 1946–1994
- Title
- People's Artist of the USSR (1974) / Hero of Socialist Labour (1990)
- Spouse
- Shulamith Kushnir
- Children
- 3
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Smoktunovsky was born in a Siberian village to a peasant family of Belarusian ethnicity. Rumors of Polish noble ancestry were denied by the actor, who stated his family was Belarusian and not of nobility. He served in the Red Army during World War II, fighting at the battles of Kursk, the Dnieper, and Kiev. After the war, he joined a theatre in Krasnoyarsk in 1946, later moving to Moscow. In 1957, Georgy Tovstonogov invited him to the Bolshoi Drama Theatre of Leningrad, where his dramatic interpretation of Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot stunned the public. Another notable stage role was the title role in Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich at the Maly Theatre in 1973.
Reader's Guide
Smoktunovsky's film career launched with Mikhail Romm's Nine Days in One Year (1962). His performance as Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsev's 1964 screen version won the Lenin Prize and was praised by Laurence Olivier, who called it 'the most brilliant I have ever seen.' British critics also lauded the film: Peter Brook noted its 'gigantic merit,' Dilys Powell described Smoktunovsky's acting as 'of extraordinary intelligence – a Hamlet who is not merely melancholy but actively dangerous,' and Tom Milne called him 'a forceful, sane, sensitive Hamlet trapped in a prison of political intrigue.' He became known to wider audiences as Yuri Detochkin in Eldar Ryazanov's detective satire Beware of the Car (1966), revealing his comic gifts. He later played Tchaikovsky in Tchaikovsky (1969), Uncle Vanya in Andrei Konchalovsky's screen version (1970), the Narrator in Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror (1975), an old man in Anatoly Efros's On Thursday and Never Again (1977), and Salieri in Mikhail Schweitzer's Little Tragedies (1979). He won the Nika Award for Best Actor in 1990. The minor planet 4926 Smoktunovskij was named after him.
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