Lapikov was born in the village of Gorny Balykley, near
Tsaritsyn (now –
Dubovsky District, Volgograd Oblast). He spent his childhood in
Stalingrad. In 1939, he enrolled in drama school in
Kharkov, where he studied for the following two years. After the beginning of
World War II, Ivan started to work in the Gorky Drama Theater (Stalingrad). There, he worked until he moved to Moscow in 1963. In Moscow, Lapikov joined the
Film Actor's Theater-Studio. His first role in cinema was in the film
The Reserve Player (1954). After
The Chairman by
Alexey Saltykov (1964), where the actor had played the brother of the lead character, Lapikov became famous. Later he created a whole gallery of the Russian characters: playing Kirill in
Andrei Rublev, Lyagavy in
The Brothers Karamazov, Pankrat Nazarov in
Eternal Call, and many other roles. ==Filmography==