Gelovani, Mikhail

Born Dec. 25, 1892 (Jan. 6, 1893); died Dec. 21, 1956. Soviet Georgian actor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1950).

Gelovani began his stage career in Batumi in 1913; subsequently he worked in theaters in Baku and Kutaisi and in the Rustaveli Tbilisi Theater. A character actor, he played Vas’ka Pepel in Gorky’s The Lower Depths, Kotsiia in Dadiani’s The Ones From Yesterday, Tariel’ Mklavadze in the play of the same name based on a novella by Ninoshvili, and other roles. Gelovani was one of the first actors to play J. V. Stalin on the stage (Dadiani’s From a Spark … and Pogodin’s Man With a Gun) and in motion pictures (Great Glow, 1938; Man With a Gun, 1938; Vyborg Side, 1939; Lenin in 1918, 1939; The Defense of Tsaritsyn, 1942; The Vow, 1946; and The Fall of Berlin, 1950). In motion pictures he also played the roles of Bakhvi Pulava in Three Lives (1925), the poet in Khabarda (1931), Rostom in The Last Masquerade (1934), Lomidze in See You Soon (1935), and Kirile in The Golden Valley (1937). Gelovani, who began film directing in 1927, directed Youth Conquers (1929), The True Caucasian (1934), and other films. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1941, 1942, 1947, and 1950, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.