Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (born Hovakim Tamiryants;note October 29, 1899 – September 17, 1972) was one of the very first Armenian film stars in Hollywood. He was born in Tiflis, Russian Empirenote and trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school for nine years, before emigrating to the United States in 1927.
One of the quintessential Plays Great Ethnics character actors in The Golden Age of Hollywood, Tamiroff's swarthy features and exotic accent saw him playing practically every ethnicity and nationality under the sun (except, ironically enough, Armenians). He won the first-ever Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a Spanish Republican revolutionary in the 1943 film version of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and was twice nominated for Academy Awards. He also inspired the character Boris Badenov in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
A personal pupil of Konstantin Stanislavski, he was one of the first Hollywood actors to utilize Method Acting techniques, decades before it became trendy. Orson Welles was a noted admirer, once calling him "the greatest of all screen actors" and the two worked together many times.
Partial filmography:
- General Salazaro in The Captain Hates the Sea
- Emir in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
- Rudolpho in Naughty Marietta
- Carlo Cibo in Anthony Adverse
- Fiesta in Union Pacific
- The Boss in The Great McGinty
- Farid in Five Graves to Cairo
- Pablo in For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Uncle Pio in The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- Jakob Zouk in Mr. Arkadin
- Boris Chernov in Anastasia
- Uncle Joe Grandi in Touch of Evil
- Spyros Acebos in Ocean's 11
- Bloch in The Trial
- Gerven in Topkapi
- Schomberg in Lord Jim
- Henri Dickson in Alphaville
- Tanamashu in Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.
- Okra in After the Fox
- Papa, Juan's father in The Great Bank Robbery
- Sancho in Orson Welles' unfinished adaptation of Don Quixote
- Mr. Anagnos in Playhouse 90 (episode: "The Miracle Worker")
- Cesar Tiffauges in The Rifleman (episode: "New Orleans Menace")
- Joe Muharich in Wagon Train (episode: "The Joe Muharich Story")
- Sam Benjamin in Route 66 (episode: "Blues for the Left Foot")
- Chairman Georgi Koz in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (episode: "The Jingle Bells Affair")
Tropes related to his work:
- Ambiguously Evil: His characters were usually at least morally-ambiguous or compromised, if not outright villainous.
- Fake Nationality: Played practically every single one EXCEPT Armenian.
- Non-Specifically Foreign: He was an ethnic Armenian, born in Russia, with an Arabic-sounding name, who spoke five different languages. If his character wasn't explicitly from a foreign country, his swarthy features and strong accent meant that he was still vaguely "alien".
- Plays Great Ethnics: Allegedly the Real Life Trope Namer.
- Stock Parody: Became the basis for "generic, evil foreigner" archetypes for years to come.
