Spanish card by Filmfono S.A. Photo: Paramount. Akim Tamiroff in The Way of All Flesh (Louis King, 1940). The Spanish title was La tortura de la carne.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1316. Photo: Paramount.
His stocky stature, dark hair, thick eyebrows and penetrating eyes
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was born Hovakim Tamiryants into an Armenian family in Tiflis in the Russian Empire (modern-day Georgia) in 1899. His father was an oil worker, and his mother was a seamstress. From the age of 19, he studied drama at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school for nine years. There he was a pupil of Konstantin Stanislavski. During that time, he changed his name to the Russified moniker Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (Russian: Аким Михайлович Тамиров).
He became acquainted with fellow Armenian Nikita Balieff. Following the Russian Revolution, Tamiroff fled Russia and joined Balieff in Paris to form the 'Théâtre de la Chauve-Souris’, a touring revue. He arrived in the U.S. for the first time in January 1923 on a three-month tour with the revue and starred in a repertory of Russian plays directed by Stanislavski. He returned in November and stayed until 1924. His final trip with them was in October 1927 when he decided to stay permanently.
He joined the Theatre Guild in New York City, where he met his wife Tamara Shayne. Both were later naturalised as United States citizens. He appeared on various New York stages and ran a school for make-up artists. After the introduction of sound film, Tamiroff went west to Hollywood in 1932 to break into the film business, and first appeared on screen in a bit part in Okay America! (Tay Garnett, 1932) and played usually uncredited small roles in films by Hollywood majors like Universal MGM and RKO.
Tamiroff's trademarks were his stocky stature, dark hair, thick eyebrows and penetrating eyes. He often wore a black moustache. He was often used as a foreigner, also because of his heavy Russian accent. He played a gypsy in Storm at Day Break (Richard Boleslawski, 1933), John Gilbert's Spanish servant Pedro in Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933) starring Greta Garbo, a Turk in The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934), an Italian in Sadie McKee (Clarence Brown, 1934) and of course a Russian in China Seas (Tay Garnett, 1935). He was getting more feature supporting roles, such as Gopal the emir in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935) and the comic puppet master Rudolpho in the adapted Operetta Naughty Marietta (Robert Z. Leonard, W.S. Van Dyke, 1935).
Tamiroff had his first major role in the crime film Woman Trap (Harold Young, 1936) for Paramount. He played a Mexican criminal trying to profit from his complicity with a New York gangster. He signed with Paramount in 1936 but was often loaned out to other studios. Other important supporting roles followed in The General Died at Dawn (Lewis Milestone, 1936), The Jungle Princess (Wilhelm Thiele, 1936) with Dorothy Lamour, and the Michael Strogoff film The Soldier and the Lady (George Nicholls junior, 1937) starring Anton Walbrook. His role as General Yang in The General Died at Dawn (1936) brought him his first of two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1149. Photo: Paramount.
A proto Film Noir inspired by Al Capone
Akim Tamiroff played his first leading role in the crime film The Great Gambini (Charles Vidor, 1937), as a famous magician involved in all kinds of crimes alongside Marian Marsh. This was followed by another major role in Cecil B. DeMille's pirate film The Buccaneer (1938).
Immediately afterwards, Tamiroff was in front of the camera for Robert Florey's masterpiece Dangerous to Know (1938). Alongside Anna May Wong and Gail Patrick, he starred as a powerful gangster who uses criminal means to win the love of a rich woman with integrity. The proto Film Noir was based on British crime writer Edgar Wallace's hit 1930 play, 'On the Spot', which had been inspired by the career of Al Capone.
In the Western Ride a Crooked Mile (Alfred E. Green, 1938), Tamiroff played a tough Russian immigrant who joined a gang of cattle rustlers and lost his morally less unreliable adult son as a result. In 1939, he appeared again alongside Anna May Wong in the crime film King of Chinatown (Nick Grinde, 1939). This time he appeared in the role of a powerful underworld boss who is overthrown by his own people. He played further leading roles in the espionage thriller The Magnificent Fraud (Robert Florey, 1939) and in The Way of All Flesh (Louis King, 1940).
Willam McPeak at IMDb: "Along with substantial supporting roles in top movies, Tamiroff was getting starring roles in 'B' pictures, allowing him to show his range by playing everything from amiable rogues to thoroughly evil villains. Two of his roles from that time exemplify what a versatile actor he was. As French trapper and scout Dan Duroc of North West Mounted Police (Cecil B. DeMille, 1940), he was something of a rascal but with a sense of humour and dignity. However, as the vile Colonna in The Corsican Brothers (Gregory Ratoff, 1941), he is irredeemably wicked, and deservedly dies in the longest sword duel on film."
Akim Tamiroff won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and an Oscar nomination in the same category with the role of the guerrilla Pablo in the Ernest Hemingway adaptation For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood, 1943) starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. In the same year, he had another significant role as an Egyptian hotel owner in Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder, 1943) starring Franchot Tone and with Erich von Stroheim as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. After the end of the Second World War, he appeared in numerous other films, including a major role in the musical Fiesta (Richard Thorpe, 1947) with Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban.
Vintage photo. Photo: Paramount.
Orson Welles's accomplice
From the 1950s onwards, Akim Tamiroff appeared in many productions for television, which was becoming popular at the time. Only Anatole Litvak's melodrama Anastasia (1956) with Ingrid Bergman was a box-office success during this period. He also appeared occasionally in low-budget horror films like The Black Sleep (Reginald Le Borg, 1955) during this period.
From a film historical perspective, the 1950s were an interesting decade for Tamiroff, because he collaborated with Orson Welles. The two men first came into contact during the filming of the historical adventure Black Magic (Gregory Ratoff, 1949), in which Welles played the role of the late 18th-century alchemist and charlatan Cagliostro and Tamiroff appeared as his accomplice Gitano.
In 1955, Tamiroff appeared as tailor Jakob Zouk in Welles' thriller Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1955), which was filmed in Europe. In the same year, Welles also worked on an adaptation of the novel 'Don Quixote', in which Tamiroff starred as Sancho Panzes alongside Francisco Reiguer as Don Quichotte. However, the film project had to be abandoned and was only released in 1992 in an edited version, Don Quijote de Orson Welles (Orson Welles, 1992). In Welles' masterpiece Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), Tamiroff played the Mexican drug lord 'Uncle Joe Grandi'. He only had a tiny role in the Franz Kafka film The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962).
Tamiroff also appeared in Ocean's 11 (Lewis Milestone, 1960) with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin's Rat Pack. In the 1960s, Akim Tamiroff worked mostly in Europe, where he appeared in films such as the Swashbuckler La Tulipe noire / The Black Tulip (Christian Jaque, 1962), with Alain Delon, and Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965). He played small roles in the successful adventure films Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) with Peter Ustinov and Melina Mercouri, and Lord Jim (Richard Brooks, 1965) with Peter O’Toole.
His last appearance was in the Israeli-French espionage film Moto Shel Yehudi / Death of a Jew (Denys de La Patellière, 1969). Akim Tamiroff died in Palm Springs of cancer at the age of 72 in 1972. He appeared in over 150 screen projects. For his contributions to the American film industry, Tamiroff received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for motion pictures at 1634 Vine Street.
German postcard by Ross Verlag. Photo: Paramount.
Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb.
1 comment:
franz kafka film the trial (orson welles, 1962); "el proceso de kafka en denia"
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