Akim Tamiroff
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| Akim Tamiroff | |
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 from the trailer for Fiesta (1947). |
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| Born | October 29, 1899 Tiflis, Georgia, Russian Empire |
| Died | September 17, 1972 (aged 72) Palm Springs, California |
| Years active | 1932–1972 |
| Spouse | Tamara Shayne (1932-1972; his death) |
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (Russian: Аким Михайлович Тамиров; 29 October 1899 – 17 September 1972) was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire (now Tbilisi, Georgia), of Armenian ethnicity.[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.
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.
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.
Tamiroff died on September 17, 1972 from cancer. He was mentioned in J. D. Salinger's "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (1942 New Yorker)
[edit] Filmography
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Akim Tamiroff |
- Akim Tamiroff at the Internet Movie Database
- Akim Tamiroff at WFMU
- Akim Tamiroff at the TCM Movie Database
- Akim Tamiroff at the Internet Broadway Database
- Akim Tamiroff at Katz's Film Encyclopedia
- Akim Tamiroff at Great Character Actors
- Akim Tamiroff at Find a Grave
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