№ 312/окр. 100th birth anniversary of Andrei Popov (1918–1983), an actor

Andrei Alekseyevich Popov (1918–1983) was a Soviet stage and film actor, theatre director and pedagogue. He was the winner of the Stalin Prize (1950) and a People’s Artist of the USSR (1965).

Andrei Popov was born on 12 April 1918 in Kostroma. His father, Aleksei Dmitryevich Popov, was a theatre director. Andrei Popov finished the Drama Studio of the Red Army Theatre in 1939. 

He starred on the stage in The Money Box, The Wide Steppe, The Government Inspector, My Friend, The Last Stop, The Drummer Girl, Yakov Bogomolov, The Ocean. Andrei Popov was the artistic director of the Soviet Army Theatre in 1963–1974. In 1974, Popov was invited to join the Moscow Art Theatre where he acted in such stage productions as Galileo’s Life, Ivanov, The Seagull, The Feedback, Duck Hunting. In 1976, Andrei Popov, while working at the Moscow Art Theatre, took charge of the Stanislavsky Theatre.

Among his best cinema roles were Novikov in The Ward, Adamov in The Seventh Companion, Logunov in Taming of the Fire, Krymov in The Story of a Human Heart. Special mention should be made of his acting in screen versions of classic novels: Dyukovsky in The Sweedish Matchby Anton Chekhov, the pawnbroker in A Gentle Creature by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nazansky in The Duel by Alexander Kuprin, William Shakespeare’s heroes – Iago in Othello and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. One of Popov’s significant screen performances is Zakhar the servant in A Few Days from the Life of I.I. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.

The postcard with a commemorative stamp features Andrei Popov’s portrait and a film scene from Othello (Mosfilm Studio, 1955).