Ushangi Viktorovich Chkheidze

Born Nov. 27, 1898; died Dec. 1, 1953, in Tbilisi. Soviet Georgian actor. People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1935).

Chkheidze enrolled in G. Dzhabadari’s theater studio in 1919, and after graduating he joined the company of the Workers’ Theater of the Avchal Auditorium. In 1921 he became an actor at the Shota Rustaveli Theater, and in 1928 he helped organize a theater in Kutaisi, now named the K. A. Mardzhanishvili Georgian Theater and relocated in Tbilisi. In 1935 he left the stage because of illness.

Chkheidze gained renown for his performances as Hamlet and lago in the Shakespearean tragedies Hamlet and Othello and in the title role in Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta. In the Georgian repertoire he played the title role in Kakabadze’s Kvarkvare Tutaberi and the police officer Chaliani in Dadiani’s Yesterdays’. He also played Godun in Lavrenev’s The Break. He was the author of the historical drama Georgii Saakadze, which was staged in 1940 at the Mardzhanishvili Theater, and the books Kote Mardzhanishvili—Director and Teacher (1949) and Reminiscences and Letters (1956). Chkheidze also appeared in motion pictures.