Oleg Tabakov
Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov (; 17 August 1935 – 12 March 2018) was a Soviet and Russian actor and the Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theatre. People's Artist of the USSR (1988). Biography. Tabakov was born in Saratov into a family of doctors. His paternal great-grandfather, Ivan Ivanovich Utin, came from serfs and was raised in a wealthy peasant family under the Tabakov surname. His grandfather, Kondratiy Tabakov, worked as a locksmith in Saratov where he built himself a house and married a local commoner Anna Konstantinovna Matveeva. Oleg's father, Pavel Kondratievich Tabakov, worked at the in  Saratov. His maternal grandfather, Andrei Frantzevich Piontkovsky, was a Polish nobleman who owned lands in the Podolia Governorate and married a local villager, Olga Terentievna (surname unknown) of Ukrainian origin. Oleg's mother, Maria Andreevna Berezovskaya (née Piontkovskaya), was a radiologist. She had a daughter Mirra from the previous marriage to Gugo Goldstern, a high-ranking Soviet functionary and intelligence officer killed in the line of duty. During the Great Patriotic War, Oleg's father volunteered for the frontline and served aboard a hospital train while his mother was evacuated to Ural along with children where she also worked in  a military hospital. After the war, the parents separated. Theatre career. Tabakov studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School. Upon graduating, he became one of the founding fathers of the Sovremennik Theatre. He administrated the Sovremennik until 1982, when he moved to the Moscow Art Theatre, where he has played Molière and Salieri for over 20 years. In 1986, Tabakov persuaded his students to form the "Tabakov Studio" attached to the Moscow Art Theatre. Several notable Russian actors, including Yevgeny Mironov, Sergey Bezrukov, Vladimir Mashkov, Andrey Smolyakov and Alexandre Marine, studied at the studio. Tabakov also worked in numerous foreign  countries, spreading his theatre's ideals abroad. Film career. Tabakov's movie career paralleled the theatrical. He was featured in Grigori Chukhrai's "Clear Skies" (1961), Sergei Bondarchuk's "War and Peace" (1966–67), TV series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (1973) and "D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers" (1978), the Academy Award-winning "Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears" (1980), Nikita Mikhalkov's "Oblomov" (1981) and "Dark Eyes" (1986), and the mock red western "A Man from the Boulevard des Capuchines" (1987), among others. Voice-over work. Tabakov has lent his distinctive, purr-like voice to a number of animated characters, including the  talking cat Matroskin in "Three from Prostokvashino" and its sequels. After the Matroskin role, he dubbed the character of Garfield into Russian in the feature film "Garfield". Political activism. During the 2012 Russian presidential election, Tabakov was registered as a "Trusted Representative" (Доверенное Лицо) of Vladimir Putin. In March 2014, he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin on Russia's military intervention in Ukraine. In September 2014, Tabakov claimed that Crimea has no relation to Ukraine and upbraided Ukrainians for discussing it: ""But all happened fairly. If our Ukrainian brothers were  smarter, they would not discuss that topic. They had to say: "Forgive us for God's sake! We had encroached the gravy train." Because Crimea has no relation to dependent, nor independent Ukraine."" Crimea is, since March 2014, under dispute by Russia and Ukraine.