Akim Tamiroff
Encyclopedia
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (now Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

), of Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas...

 drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors and decided to stay. Tamiroff managed to develop a career in Hollywood despite his thick Russian accent.

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 Lives of a Bengal Lancer
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 American adventure film loosely adapted from the 1930 book of the same name by Francis Yeats-Brown. The plot of the movie, which bears little resemblance to Yeats-Brown's memoir, concerns British soldiers defending the borders of India against rebellious...

. The following year, he was cast in the title role in The General Died at Dawn
The General Died at Dawn
The General Died at Dawn is a 1936 film that tells the story of a mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a vicious warlord in war-torn China. The movie was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets, and directed by Lewis Milestone.It stars Gary Cooper,...

, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

. He appeared in the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome
High, Wide, and Handsome
High, Wide, and Handsome is a 1937 American musical film starring Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Alan Hale, Sr., Charles Bickford, and Dorothy Lamour....

and the 1938 proto-noir Dangerous to Know
Dangerous to Know
Dangerous to Know is a 1938 crime film starring Anna May Wong, Akim Tamiroff, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, and Anthony Quinn. The movie was directed by Robert Florey...

opposite Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...

, frequently singled out as his best role.

In the following decade, he appeared in such films as The Buccaneer
The Buccaneer (1938 film)
The Buccaneer is a 1938 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer and C. Gardner Sullivan adapted by Jeanie...

(1938), The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition...

(1940), The Corsican Brothers
The Corsican Brothers (1941 film)
The Corsican Brothers is a 1941 swashbuckler film starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in a dual role as the title Siamese twins, separated at birth and raised in completely different circumstances. Both thirst for revenge against the man who killed their parents, both fall in love with the same woman,...

(1941), Tortilla Flat
Tortilla Flat
Tortilla Flat is an early John Steinbeck novel set in Monterey, California. The novel was the author's first clear critical and commercial success....

(1942), Five Graves to Cairo
Five Graves to Cairo
Five Graves to Cairo is a 1943 World War II film by Billy Wilder, starring Franchot Tone and Anne Baxter. It is one of a number of films based on Lajos Biró's play Színmü négy felvonásban, including Hotel Imperial .-Plot:...

(1943), His Butler's Sister (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 film in Technicolor based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou. This was Ingrid Bergman's first technicolor film. Hemingway handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles. The film...

(1943), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a 1944 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton, and featuring Diana Lynn, William Demarest and Porter Hall...

(1944). In later years, Tamiroff appeared in Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....

(1960), Topkapi
Topkapi (film)
Topkapi is a heist film made by Filmways Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by the emigre American film director, Jules Dassin...

(1964), Alphaville (1965) and had a long collaboration with Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 including Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson...

(1958), Mr Arkadin (1955), The Trial
The Trial (1962 film)
The Trial is a 1962 film directed by Orson Welles, who also wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka...

(1962) and Welles' unfinished version of Don Quixote
Don Quixote (unfinished film)
Don Quixote is an unfinished film project directed and produced between 1955 and 1969 by Orson Welles.-Television project:Don Quixote was initially conceived as a 30-minute film for CBS. Rather than offer a literal adaptation of the Miguel de Cervantes novel, Welles opted to bring the characters...

, in which he played Sancho Panza.

While Tamiroff may not be a household name now, his malapropistic
Malapropism
A malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...

 performance as the boss in The Great McGinty inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov
Boris Badenov
Boris Badenov is a fictional character in the 1960s animated cartoons Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle for short. He is voiced by Paul Frees....

, the male half of the villainous husband-and-wife team Boris and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959 to June 28, 1964 on the ABC and NBC television networks...

. He was also spoofed in a 1969 episode of the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf
H.R. Pufnstuf
H.R. Pufnstuf was a children's television series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in the United States. It was the first Krofft live-action, life-size puppet program. The seventeen episodes were originally broadcast September 6, 1969 to September 4, 1971...

entitled "The Stand-in" in which a frog named "Akim Toadanoff" directs a movie on Living Island.

Tamiroff died on September 17, 1972 from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

. He was mentioned in J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....

's "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (1942 New Yorker)

Filmography

  • Okay, America! (1932) (uncredited film debut)
  • Queen Christina
    Queen Christina (film)
    Queen Christina is a Pre-Code Hollywood feature film loosely based on the life of 17th century Queen Christina of Sweden, produced in 1933, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith and Lewis Stone. It was billed as Garbo's return to cinema...

    (1933) (uncredited)
  • The Scarlet Empress
    The Scarlet Empress
    The Scarlet Empress is a 1934 historical drama film made by Paramount Pictures about the life of Catherine the Great. It was directed and produced by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Eleanor McGeary, loosely based on the diary of Catherine arranged by Manuel Komroff...

    (1934) (uncredited)
  • The Merry Widow
    The Merry Widow
    The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...

    (1934) (uncredited)
  • The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
    The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
    The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 American adventure film loosely adapted from the 1930 book of the same name by Francis Yeats-Brown. The plot of the movie, which bears little resemblance to Yeats-Brown's memoir, concerns British soldiers defending the borders of India against rebellious...

    (1935)
  • Naughty Marietta (1935)
  • China Seas
    China Seas (film)
    China Seas is a 1935 adventure film starring Clark Gable as a brave sea captain, Jean Harlow as his brassy paramour, and Wallace Beery as an extremely suspicious-looking character...

    (1935)
  • The Gay Deception
    The Gay Deception
    The Gay Deception is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring Francis Lederer and Frances Dee. Writers Stephen Morehouse Avery and Don Hartman were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story.-Plot:...

    (1935)
  • The Big Broadcast of 1936
    The Big Broadcast of 1936
    The Big Broadcast of 1936 is a Paramount Pictures production, directed by Norman Taurog, and is the second in the series of Big Broadcast movies...

    (1935)
  • The Story of Louis Pasteur
    The Story of Louis Pasteur
    The Story of Louis Pasteur is a 1936 American biographical film. It starred Paul Muni as the renowned scientist. It was written by Toni Pollastre and Sheridan Gibney, and Edward Chodorov , and directed by William Dieterle....

    (1936)
  • Desire
    Desire (1936 film)
    Desire is an American romantic drama film released in 1936 and directed by Frank Borzage. It was produced by Borzage and Ernst Lubitsch. The picture is a remake of the 1933 German film Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez. The screenplay was written by Samuel Hoffenstein, Edwin Justus Mayer and Waldemar...

    (1936)
  • Anthony Adverse
    Anthony Adverse
    Anthony Adverse is a 1936 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay by Sheridan Gibney is based on the sprawling 1,224-page novel of the same title by Hervey Allen.-Plot:...

    (1936)
  • The General Died at Dawn
    The General Died at Dawn
    The General Died at Dawn is a 1936 film that tells the story of a mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a vicious warlord in war-torn China. The movie was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets, and directed by Lewis Milestone.It stars Gary Cooper,...

    (1936)
  • High, Wide, and Handsome
    High, Wide, and Handsome
    High, Wide, and Handsome is a 1937 American musical film starring Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Alan Hale, Sr., Charles Bickford, and Dorothy Lamour....

    (1937)
  • The Buccaneer
    The Buccaneer (1938 film)
    The Buccaneer is a 1938 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures based on Jean Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer and C. Gardner Sullivan adapted by Jeanie...

    (1938)
  • Dangerous to Know
    Dangerous to Know
    Dangerous to Know is a 1938 crime film starring Anna May Wong, Akim Tamiroff, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, and Anthony Quinn. The movie was directed by Robert Florey...

    (1938)
  • Spawn of the North
    Spawn of the North
    Spawn of the North is a 1938 film about rival fishermen in Alaska starring George Raft and featuring Henry Fonda, Dorothy Lamour, and John Barrymore...

    (1938)
  • Union Pacific
    Union Pacific (film)
    Union Pacific is a 1939 American dramatic western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Based on the novel Trouble Shooter by Western fiction author Ernest Haycox, the film is about the building of the railroad across the American West.-Plot:The 1862...

    (1939)
  • The Way of All Flesh
    The Way of All Flesh (film)
    The Way of All Flesh is a drama film directed by Victor Fleming, written by Lajos Biró, Jules Furthman and Julian Johnson from a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. The film is unrelated to Samuel Butler's novel The Way of All Flesh, and is now considered a lost film.-Cast:*Emil Jannings - August...

    (1940)
  • The Great McGinty
    The Great McGinty
    The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition...

    (1940)
  • North West Mounted Police (1940)
  • New York Town
    New York Town
    New York Town is a 1941 romantic comedy film directed by Charles Vidor and starring Fred MacMurray, Mary Martin, Akim Tamiroff and Robert Preston...

    (1941)
  • The Corsican Brothers
    The Corsican Brothers (1941 film)
    The Corsican Brothers is a 1941 swashbuckler film starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in a dual role as the title Siamese twins, separated at birth and raised in completely different circumstances. Both thirst for revenge against the man who killed their parents, both fall in love with the same woman,...

    (1941)
  • Tortilla Flat
    Tortilla Flat
    Tortilla Flat is an early John Steinbeck novel set in Monterey, California. The novel was the author's first clear critical and commercial success....

    (1942)
  • Five Graves to Cairo
    Five Graves to Cairo
    Five Graves to Cairo is a 1943 World War II film by Billy Wilder, starring Franchot Tone and Anne Baxter. It is one of a number of films based on Lajos Biró's play Színmü négy felvonásban, including Hotel Imperial .-Plot:...

    (1943)
  • His Butler's Sister
    His Butler's Sister
    His Butler's Sister is a 1943 comedy film directed by Frank Borzage. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Recording His Butler's Sister is a 1943 comedy film directed by Frank Borzage. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Recording His Butler's Sister is a 1943...

    (1943)
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls
    For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)
    For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 film in Technicolor based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou. This was Ingrid Bergman's first technicolor film. Hemingway handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles. The film...

    (1943)
  • The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
    The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
    The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a 1944 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton, and featuring Diana Lynn, William Demarest and Porter Hall...

    (1944)

  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...

    (1944)
  • Dragon Seed (1944)
  • Can't Help Singing
    Can't Help Singing
    Can't Help Singing is a 1944 musical Western filmed in Technicolor starring Deanna Durbin. The film was produced by Felix Jackson and directed by Frank Ryan. The score was by Jerome Kern with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg.-Plot:...

    (1944)
  • Pardon My Past (1945)
  • A Scandal in Paris
    A Scandal in Paris
    A Scandal in Paris is a fictionalized 1946 biographical film, directed by Douglas Sirk and starring George Sanders. It depicts the life of Eugène François Vidocq, a French criminal who reformed and became a famous French prefect of police during the Napoleonic era.-Plot:The rogue who would later...

    (1946)
  • The Gangster
    The Gangster
    The Gangster is an American crime film noir directed by Gordon Wiles. The drama features Barry Sullivan, Belita, Joan Lorring and Akim Tamiroff...

    (1947)
  • Outpost in Morocco
    Outpost in Morocco
    Outpost in Morocco is a 1949 Drama directed by Robert Florey, starring George Raft and Marie Windsor. Paul Gerard , a Moroccan Spahi officer and his French Foreign Legion garrison, holds off attacks from the native tribes of the Emir of Bel-Rashad , the father of Cara , the woman he loves.As a...

    (1949)
  • Desert Legion (1953)
  • They Who Dare
    They Who Dare
    They Who Dare is a 1954 World War II war film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Dirk Bogarde, Harold Siddons, Akim Tamiroff and Eric Pohlmann. The story is based on events that took place during World War II in the Dodecanese islands where special forces attempted to disrupt the Luftwaffe...

    (1954)
  • You Know What Sailors Are (1954)
  • Mr. Arkadin
    Mr. Arkadin
    Mr. Arkadin is a French-Spanish-Swiss coproduction film, written and directed by Orson Welles and shot in several Spanish locations, including Segovia, Valladolid and Madrid.Its history is convoluted...

    (1955)
  • The Black Sleep
    The Black Sleep (1956 film)
    The Black Sleep is an American black-and-white horror film, scripted by John C. Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams developed for producers Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, who had a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists. The film was re-released in 1962...

    (1956)
  • Anastasia
    Anastasia (1956 film)
    Anastasia is a 1956 American historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak for 20th Century Fox. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. Supporting players include Akim Tamiroff, Martita Hunt, and, in a small role, Natalie Schafer...

    (1956)
  • Yangtse Incident
    Yangtse Incident (1957 film)
    Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst is a 1957 British war film that tells the story of the British frigate HMS Amethyst caught up in the Chinese Civil War....

    (1957)
  • Touch of Evil
    Touch of Evil
    Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson...

    (1958)
  • Me and the Colonel
    Me and the Colonel
    Me and the Colonel is a 1958 film based on the play "Jacobowsky und der Oberst" by Franz Werfel. It was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Danny Kaye, Curd Jürgens and Akim Tamiroff....

    (1958)
  • Ocean's Eleven
    Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
    Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....

    (1960)
  • Romanoff and Juliet
    Romanoff and Juliet (film)
    Romanoff and Juliet is a 1961 feature film adaptation of the play of the same name released by Universal Pictures. Peter Ustinov wrote the screenplay, directed, and starred in the film...

    (1961)
  • The Reluctant Saint
    The Reluctant Saint
    The Reluctant Saint is a 1962 film which tells a somewhat fictionalized version of the story of Joseph of Cupertino, a 17th Century Italian saint. It stars Maximilian Schell as Joseph, as well as Ricardo Montalban, Lea Padovani, Akim Tamiroff, and Harold Goldblatt...

    (1962)
  • The Trial
    The Trial (1962 film)
    The Trial is a 1962 film directed by Orson Welles, who also wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka...

    (1962)
  • Topkapi
    Topkapi (film)
    Topkapi is a heist film made by Filmways Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by the emigre American film director, Jules Dassin...

    (1964)
  • Lord Jim
    Lord Jim (1965 film)
    Lord Jim is a 1965 adventure film made by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by Richard Brooks with Jules Buck and Peter O'Toole as associate producers, from a screenplay by Brooks...

    (1965)
  • Alphaville (1965)
  • Hotel Paradiso
    Hotel Paradiso (film)
    Hotel Paradiso is a 1966 film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Peter Glenville and based on the play Hotel du Libre Echange by Maurice Desvallières and Georges Feydeau.-Synopsis:...

    (1966)
  • Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.
    Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.
    Lt. Robin Crusoe USN is a 1966 comedy film released and scripted by Walt Disney. The film stars Dick Van Dyke as a U.S. Navy pilot who becomes a castaway on a tropical island. It was shot in San Diego....

    (1966)
  • After the Fox
    After the Fox
    After the Fox is a 1966 British-Italian comedy film starring Peter Sellers and directed by Vittorio De Sica. The screenplay is in English, by Neil Simon and De Sica's longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini....

    (1966)
  • Marquis de Sade: Justine
    Marquis de Sade: Justine
    Marquis de Sade: Justine is a 1969 Italian drama film, directed by Jesús Franco and starring Klaus Kinski. It is based on the novel Justine by Marquis de Sade.-Plot:...

    (1969)
  • 100 Rifles
    100 Rifles
    100 Rifles is a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries. The film stars Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch, and Fernando Lamas. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith.-Plot:...

    (1969)
  • Don Quixote (unfinished, filmed between 1955–1969)


External links

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