Valéry Inkijinoff

Valéry Inkijinoff Russian Валерьян Валерий Иванович Инкижинов 25 March 1895 26 September 1973 was a French actor of RussianBuryat origin His strong facial features made him a favourite villain of French cinema for exotic adventure films and crime movies Inkijinoff was born to a Christian Buryat father and a Russian mother in Irkutsk gubernia He studied at the Polytechnical Institute of Saint Petersburg and was for a time one of the resident actors of an imperial theater of this city At the beginning of his career in Russia he appeared first as stuntman in a few movies and then as director and as actor His major lead role during the Russian part of his career is The Son in Storm Over Asia by Vsevolod Pudovkin in 1928 a major Soviet propaganda film about a fictional British consolidation of Mongolia He was also an actor in the troop of Vsevolod Meyerhold and was then appointed as director of the movie and theater school of Kiev in Ukraine In 1930 while in France on a European tour he refused to return to the USSR According to Boris Shumyatsky after Stalin learned Inkijinoff had never returned in 1934 said Too bad that the man escaped Now he probably is dying to come back but alas too late He starred in 2 movies while living in the Soviet Union and contrary to Stalins assumption Inkijinoff became immensely popular in Europe arguably the most successful Soviet actor abroad starring in a total of 44 French British German and Italian films In France he frequently played the part of Asian villains His most active period was in the thirties when he appeared in Les Bateliers de la Volga and the G W Pabst film Le drame de Shanghai He played for Fritz Lang in 1959 in Der Tiger von Eschnapur and its sequel Das indische Grabmal in which he played the role of the high priest Yama In 1965 Philippe de Broca cast him as Monsieur Goh the wise but scary Chinese who guarantees to the JeanPaul Belmondo character a certain death in Les tribulations dun Chinois en Chine His last movie was with Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale where he played the role of Indian chief Spitting Bull in Les pétroleuses He was a great friend of Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet and had a long career in French theater appearing for instance in Marie Galante by Jacques Deval He died at his home in Brunoy Essonne France aged 78 Source Article Valéry Inkijinoff from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30