Boris Barnet
Barnet, Boris Vasil’evich
Born June 5 (18), 1902, in Moscow; died Jan. 8, 1965, in Riga. Soviet film director and actor; Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1935); Honored Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR (1951). Member of the CPSU beginning in 1943.
Barnet studied at the State Technicum of Cinematography in the studio of L. V. Kuleshov. He began work in films as an actor in 1924 and later worked as a director (the comedy The Girl With a Box, and the historical revolutionary film Moscow in October, both made in 1927; and the satirical comedy The House on the Trubnaia, 1928). Barnet’s first sound film was The Outskirts (1933)—his greatest work as a director. The film The Deed of the Agent (1947), in which Barnet played the role of the German general Kühn, was devoted to the events of the Great Patriotic War. His later films include Bountiful Summer (1951), The Poet (1959), The Wrestler and the Clown (1957; made with K. K. Iudin), Annushka (1959), and Alenka (1962; based on a work by S. Antonov). Barnet received the State Prize of the USSR (1948). He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.