Aleksandr Borisov (actor)

Aleksandr Fyodorovich Borisov (Алекса́ндр Фёдорович Бори́сов; 1 May 1905 – 12 May 1982) was a Soviet actor, film director, screenwriter and singer.

Borisov was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1962–1966. He won four Stalin Prizes (in 1947 for his theatrical work, in 1950 for Pavlov, and twice in 1951, for portraying Aleksandr Popov and Mussorgsky). People's Artist of the USSR (1951) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1981).

Borisov studied at the studio of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, he joined the troupe of its studio theater upon graduation in 1927 and its main troupe in 1928.

Aleksandr Borisov is best known for starring in biopic films; he appeared in the title roles of Grigori Roshal’s Ivan Pavlov (1949) and Mussorgsky (1950), as Rybkin in Herbert Rappaport’s Aleksandr Popov (1950), and as Alexander Herzen in Grigorii Kozintsev’s ill-fated Belinsky (1953).

Beginning with the Khrushchev Thaw, Borisov started to play more different roles, including, Professor Lapin in Mikhail Kalatozov’s comedy True Friends (1954) and as Marko Mukha in the blockbuster Maksim Perepelitsa (1956). The actor also appeared in adaptations of classical Russian literature such as Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (1962–1967), in which he portrayed Uncle Rostov, and Iosif Kheifits’s In S. City (1967) from Anton Chekhov’s story Ionych. In 1960, he directed an adaptation of Fedor Dostoevsky’s short story A Gentle Creature with Iya Savvina in the title role.

Selected filmography

 * Actor
 * Friends (1938) as Nazarka
 * Ivan Pavlov (1949) as Ivan Pavlov
 * Alexander Popov (1949) as Rybkin
 * Mussorgsky (1950) as Modest Petrovich Moussorgsky
 * Belinsky (1953) as Alexander Herzen
 * Rimsky-Korsakov (1953) as Savva Mamontov
 * True Friends (1954) as Aleksandr Lapin
 * Maksim Perepelitsa (1956) as Marko Mukha
 * Volnitsa (1956) as Blyakhin
 * War and Peace (1966, part 1, 2) as Uncle Rostov
 * In S. City (1967) as Puzyryov
 * Karpukhin (1973) as Judge Sarychev
 * Director
 * A Gentle Creature (1960)