Mikhail Aleksandrovich Kirillov

Born Nov. 8, 1900, in Tomsk; died Apr. 12, 1971, in Ashkhabad. Soviet Russian actor; People’s Artist of the USSR (1971). Member of the CPSU (1941).

Beginning in 1924, Kirillov worked as an actor and director in theaters in Tomsk, Prokop’evsk (Kuzbas), Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Irkutsk. In 1937 he began working with the A. S. Pushkin Ashkhabad Russian Drama Theater. Kirillov played the roles of Polezhaev in Rakhmanov’s Restless Old Age, Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Luka and Egor Bulychov in Gorky’s The Lower Depths and Egor Bulychov and Others, Chebutykin in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, Allan in Mukhtarov’s Allan’s Family, and Zabelin in Pogodin’s The Kremlin Chimes. Kirillov was awarded the Order of Lenin and two other orders. In 1970 he received the Makhtumkuli Prize.