Born 16 April 1912, in
Saint Petersburg, he was educated in
Leningrad, starting his career at a local theatre. In 1934, he was noticed by
Vsevolod Meyerhold who invited him to join his own troupe in
Moscow. Samoylov worked with Meyerhold for four years. He got his most substantial roles in
Meyerhold's theatre playing
Hernani in
Hugo's drama and Chatsky in
Woe from Wit. When Meyerhold was arrested and purged in 1938, Samoylov was in the middle of rehearsing for Pushkin's
Boris Godunov (the role of
Grigory Otrepyev) and Ostrovsky's
How the Steel Was Tempered (the role of Pavka Korchagin). His acting career seemed to be unhampered, however. Samoylov's appearance as the Soviet commander
Shchors in
Alexander Dovzhenko's
film of the same name won him the
Stalin Prize for 1941. He proceeded to become an iconic film actor of the
Joseph Stalin era, playing against
Lyubov Orlova in
Bright Path and
Marina Ladynina in
Six P.M. (1944 film; 1946 Stalin Prize). One of his favourite film roles was that of
General Skobelev in
Heroes of Shipka (1955). After the Meyerhold theatre was disbanded, Samoylov moved to
Nikolay Okhlopkov's Mayakovsky Theatre, where he would work until the director's death in 1967. His role of Oleg Koshevoy in the first stage version of
The Young Guard won him another Stalin Prize. One of the highlights of his career was
Hamlet in Okhlopkov's production of 1954. It was the first post-war production of the play in the country and led to Okhlopkov's joint work with
Peter Brook. In 1961, he was cast as
Jason in the first-ever Russian production of
Medea by
Euripides. Six years later, he appeared in the role opposite
Aspasia Papathanassiou of
Greece. In 1967, Samoylov rejoined his colleagues from the Meyerhold Theatre in the
Maly Theatre. The greatest success of his declining years was the role of Prince
Ivan Shuisky in
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1973). "It was a genuine Christian man, living in Christ; I have never seen anything like this", says
Georgy Sviridov, who composed music for the production. Samoylov's last film roles came in the movies directed by
Sergei Bondarchuk, such as
Waterloo and
Boris Godunov. The actor celebrated his 90th birthday acting on the stage of the Maly Theatre in 2002. He died on 17 February 2006, aged 93, in
Moscow ==Partial filmography==