Armen Cigarhanyan

Armen Cigarhanyan — Biography

Armen Cigarhanyan, better known as Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, was born on 3 October 1935 in Yerevan, capital of Soviet Armenia, and died on 14 November 2020 in Moscow. An Armenian-born Soviet and Russian actor, he also worked in dubbing, taught drama and directed theatre. He began on stage at academic and Russian-language theatres in Yerevan, spent over a decade at the Stanislavski Russian Theatre, then moved to Moscow in 1967; after a brief spell elsewhere, he joined the Mayakovsky Theatre in 1969 and led it as its lead actor for close to three decades.

He made his screen debut in 1960 and became popular in the 1970s for roles in Soviet films including The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers, its sequel The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers, and The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed; he went on to appear in more than 250 productions, among the most prolific actors in Russian film history. He also taught at VGIK and was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1985.

In 1996 he founded his own drama theatre in Moscow to reunite former students, and led it until his death. He remained politically outspoken in later years, condemning the 2014 annexation of Crimea and standing unsuccessfully in Moscow's 2017 municipal elections.