Chestnokov, Vladimir

Chestnokov, Vladimir Ivanovich 

Born Mar. 30 (Apr. 12), 1904, in St. Petersburg; died May 15, 1968, in Leningrad. Soviet actor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1960). Member of the CPSU from 1941.

Chestnokov graduated from the School of Russian Drama in 1924. He appeared with the Leningrad Pushkin Drama Theater from 1924 to 1936 and rejoined the company in 1954 after performing with the Theater of the Lenin Komsomol, the Theater of the Baltic Fleet, and the Bolshoi Drama Theater, all in Leningrad.

Chestnokov excelled in the title role in Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, as Aleksei Ivanovich in The Gambler (after Dostoevsky’s novel), Saburov in Days and Nights (after the novella by Simonov), and in the title role in Don César de Basan by Dumanoir and Dennery, which was made into a film.

Chestnokov portrayed V. I. Lenin in Kapler’s Year of the Storm, Mikhailov’s Grim Happiness, Pogodin’s Living Flowers, Shtein’s Between Downpours, and in the film In the October Days (1958). He also appeared in the films The Fourth Periscope (1939), Ivan Pavlov (1949), and The Green Carriage (1967). From 1949 to 1953 he taught at the Leningrad Ostrovskii Theatrical Institute.

Chestnokov, a recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1950 and 1967, was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.

WORKS

Kak ia rabotal nad obrazom Lenina. Leningrad-Moscow, 1960.