Vladimir Belokurov

Born June 25 (July 8), 1904, in Kazan; died Jan. 28, 1973, in Moscow. Soviet Russian actor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1965).

Belokurov graduated from the theater division of the Higher Institute of Public Education in Kazan in 1918. In the same year he worked in a troupe under the direction of I. N. Pevtsov; during the years 1919–23, in the Kazan Theater; and during the years 1924–36, in Moscow at the Theater of the Revolution. His roles included Belogubov (Ostrovskii’s A Profitable Business), Mercutio (Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), and others. From 1936 he worked with the company of the Moscow Art Academic Theater. Belokurov was a bold and forceful character and exhibited a high degree of craftsmanship. His performance was marked by a poignancy of external and internal portrayal, as well as by a precision of social characterization.

Belokurov’s best roles were Chichikov (Dead Souls, based on Gogol’s novel), Iasha (Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard), and Grigorii (L. N. Tolstoy’s Fruits of Enlightenment). A large place in Belokurov’s creative work was occupied by such roles from the Soviet repertoire as Getmanov (Kron’s Distant Reconnaissance), Veretennikov (Kron’s Navy Officer), and Grozdilin (Pogodin’s The Third Is Pathetic). He acted in motion pictures from 1932. He created the character of Valerii Chkalov in the film of the same name. For his performance in the role of Chaplygin in the film Zhukovskii, Belokurov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1951. He engaged in pedagogical activity from 1934 to 1948 (beginning in 1946 as a professor) at the State Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS), and beginning in 1946 at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). Belokurov was awarded two orders, as well as medals.