Viacheslav Vasilevich Tikhonov

Born Feb. 8, 1928, in Pavlovskii Posad, Moscow Oblast. Soviet film actor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1974).

Tikhonov graduated from the department of acting of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in 1950. He made his film debut in the role of Volodia Os’mukhin in Young Guard (1948), based on the novel by A. A. Fadeev. He won fame with his performance in the character parts of Matvei Morozov in It Happened in Pen’kovo (1958) and Viktor Raiskii in An Extraordinary Incident (1959). He has portrayed a number of lyric and heroic characters. The most important are Aleksei in An Optimistic Tragedy (1963), Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1966–67), and Mel’nikov in Let’s Live Til Monday (1968). His greatest performance was in the role of the Soviet intelligence colonel Isaev (Shtirlits) in the television serial Seventeen Moments of Spring (1972). In his best work, Tikhonov enters into the inner world of the character he is portraying and reveals the true psychological, emotional, and intellectual nature of the character.

Tikhonov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1970.