Nikolai Afanasevich Kriuchkov

Born Dec. 24, 1910 (Jan. 6, 1911), in Moscow. Soviet Russian actor; People’s Artist of the USSR (1965). Member of the CPSU since 1953.

Kriuchkov acted in amateur theater groups and joined the troupe of the Moscow Theater of Young Workers in 1928. His teachers included N. P. Khmelev, I. la. Sudakov, and I. A. Savchenko. His first motion-picture role was the shoemaker Sen’ka (The Outskirts, 1933). In the 1930’s and 1940’s he created a number of contemporary types who were engaging, vital, and utterly dedicated to their homeland: Andrei Sazonov (Komsomol’sk, 1938); Tarasov, the commander of a frontier post (On the Frontier, 1938); Klim larko (Tractor Drivers, 1939); Sergei Lukonin (One of the Local Boys, 1942, based on Simonov’s play); and Lieutenant Sergei Gorlov (The Front, 1943, based on Korneichuk’s play).

Kriuchkov portrayed underground revolutionaries, Red Guards, and Soviet partisans in such films as A Man With the Gun (1938), lakov Sverdlov (1940), and The Forty-First (1956). He displayed outstanding comedic gifts in the roles of Korol’kov (The Rumiantsev Case, 1956) and Afanasii Matveevich (Uncle’s Dream, 1967, based on Dostoevsky’s story).

In the 1950’s and 1960’s he played several dramatic roles that revealed the complex inner life of the characters—for example, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department in Cruelty (1959, based on the novella by Nilin), Teterin in The Trial (1962, based on the work by Tendriakov), and the title role in The Stray Sheep (1966). Kriuchkov portrayed Colonel Zakharov in Far in the West (1969).

He received the State Prize of the USSR (1941). He was awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and medals.