Sneha Girap (Editor)

Akim Tamiroff

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Years active  1932–1972
Name  Akim Tamiroff
Role  Actor

Akim Tamiroff Virginia Weidler Remembrance Society TODAY IN GINNY

Born  October 29, 1899 (1899-10-29) Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire
Died  September 17, 1972, Palm Springs, California, United States
Spouse  Tamara Shayne (m. 1932–1972)
Awards  Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominations  Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Movies  Touch of Evil, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Alphaville, Mr Arkadin, Topkapi
Similar People  Sam Wood, Lewis Milestone, Orson Welles, Peter Glenville, Gregory Ratoff

Character actors akim tamiroff


Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (Armenian: Ակիմ Թամիրով, Russian: Аким Михайлович Тамиров; birth name` Hovakim, Armenian: Հովակիմ; 29 October 1899 – 17 September 1972) was an ethnic Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and appeared in at least 80 American motion pictures in a career spanning thirty-seven years.

Contents

Akim Tamiroff 108371991jpgv8CE03128575C080

Biography

Akim Tamiroff httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire (now Tbilisi, Georgia), of Armenian ancestry. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors and decided to stay. Tamiroff managed to develop a career in Hollywood despite his thick Russian accent.

Film career

Akim Tamiroff Akim Tamiroff uniFrance Films

Tamiroff's film debut came in 1932 in an uncredited role in Okay, America!. He performed in several more uncredited roles until 1935, when he co-starred in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. He also appeared in the lavish epic China Seas in 1935 with Clark Gable, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Rosalind Russell and Robert Benchley. The following year, he was cast in the titular role in The General Died at Dawn with Gary Cooper, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He appeared in the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome with Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, and the 1938 proto-noir Dangerous to Know opposite Anna May Wong, frequently singled out as his best role.

Akim Tamiroff AKIM TAMIROFF FREE Wallpapers amp Background images

In the following decade, he appeared in such films as The Buccaneer (1938) with Fredric March, The Great McGinty (1940), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Tortilla Flat (1942) with Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, Five Graves to Cairo (1943) with Erich von Stroheim as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Frank Borzage's His Butler's Sister (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, for which he received another Oscar nomination, and Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). In later years, Tamiroff appeared in Ocean's 11 (1960) with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin's Rat Pack, Topkapi (1964) with Peter Ustinov, Alphaville (1965), and had a long collaboration with Orson Welles including Touch of Evil (1958) with Charlton Heston, Mr Arkadin (1955), The Trial (1962) and Welles' unfinished version of Don Quixote, in which he played Sancho Panza.

Legacy

Akim Tamiroff Akim Tamiroff uniFrance Films

While Tamiroff may not be a household name now, his malapropistic performance as the boss in The Great McGinty inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov, the male half of the villainous husband-and-wife team Boris and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. He was also spoofed in a 1969 episode of the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf entitled "The Stand-in" in which a frog named "Akim Toadanoff" directs a movie on Living Island.

Personal

Tamiroff died on September 17, 1972, from cancer. He was mentioned in J. D. Salinger's "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (1942 New Yorker) He is also mentioned in Walker Percy's 1961 novel The Moviegoer.

References

Akim Tamiroff Wikipedia