People’s Artist of the USSR, stage and screen actor Yevgeny Yevstigneyev (1926–1992) was born on October 9, 1926. He got his first big role in “The Naked King,” based on the play by Yevgeny Shvarts at the Sovremennik Theater in 1960. Yevstigneyev, who played the main role, suddenly became famous. In 1970, he followed actor Oleg Yefremov’s example by moving to the Moscow Chekhov Theater. \n\nIn 1957, Yevstigneyev got his first film role. In 1963, he starred in the film “Never.” There was no limit to his talent: he played evil characters such as Garin in “The Garin Death Ray,” General Pralinsky in “A Nasty Story,” Korzukhin in “The Run,” Dynin in “Welcome, or No Trespassing,” Ogorodnikov in “The Elder Sister,” Kalachev in “The Zigzag of Success,” and Koreiko in “The Golden Calf.” But at the same time, Yevstigneyev tried to humanify his seeming gloomy and unsociable characters, to bring sympathy and lyricism to his roles, to show them as good-hearted and sometimes naive, or maybe awkward. Among those roles were captain Ivan Terentievich in “Faith,” Vorobyov in “Old Men: Robbers,” Professor Pleischner in “The Seventeen Moments of Spring,” Goryayev in “The Story of an Unknown Actor,” the boarding school’s gatekeeper in “Wounded Game,” Ivan Adamych in “Old New Year,” Vasily Vasilyevich in “Still Loving, Still Hoping,” Stepan Stepanovich in “And Love, and Tears, and Love,” Beglov in “Winter Evening in Gagry” and Professor Preobrazhensky in “The Heart of a Dog.” \n\nYevstigneyev portrayed over a hundred roles.
