Igor Ilyinsky

Igor V. Ilyinsky

Igor Vladimirovich Ilyinsky (1901-1987) was the favorite comic actor of Vsevolod Meyerhold who starred in a number of his world-famous productions, including Magnificent Cuckold (1922), Vladimir Mayakovsky's Bedbug (1928), and Nikolai Gogol'sThe Inspector General (1926). Following Meyerhold's repression he moved to the Malyi Theatre, where he worked for several decades, until being overpowered by blindness. Shortly before his death, he was declared a Hero of Socialist Labour.

Ilyinsky's career in movies was launched with a role of a private detective in Yakov Protazanov's Aelita (1924). He is best remembered by wider audiences as a roguish bureaucrat Ogurtsov in Volga-Volga (1938), in which he played against Lyubov Orlova, and The Carnival Night (1956), in which he played against Lyudmila Gurchenko. In the enormously popular Hussar Ballad (1962) Ilyinsky played Field-Marshal Kutuzov. His autobiography was published in 1961.

See also

*Faina Ranevskaya
*Erast Garin