Vasily Lanovoy

Vasily Semyonovich Lanovoy (Russian: "Василий Семенович Лановой") (born 1934) is a Ukrainian-born Russian actor who works in the Vakhtangov Theatre, Moscow. He is also known as the President of Artek Festival of Films for Children. Lanovoy's honours include the KGB Prize, the Lenin Prize, and the title of People's Artist of the USSR.

Lanovoy specialized in playing bold, dashing characters, combining heroic bravado with a sensitivity typical of Russian heroes, a tendency evident in many of his early features, such as "A Certificate of Maturity" (1954) and "Pavel Korchagin" (1956).

Lanovoy's many film roles from the 1960s include Anatole Kuragin in Sergei Bondarchuk's "War and Peace" and Count Vronsky in the screen version of "Anna Karenina". By this time, he has tried to create complex psychological portraits of his characters. His best known films from the 1970s were "Officers" (1971) and "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (1973). In recent years, he has appeared primarily in the roles of Communist party bosses, such as Yuri Andropov in the 2005 TV series "Brezhnev".

Lanovoy is married to Irina Kupchenko, herself a famous actress. His first wife was another film star, Tatiana Samoilova, best known for her leading part in "The Cranes Are Flying".

External links

* [http://www.vakhtangov.ru/onstage/actors/lanovoi/ Vasily Lanovoy on the Vakhtangov Theatre webpage]
* [http://www.peoples.ru/art/theatre/actor/lanovoy/photo.html Photographs and interviews]