Vitold Polonsky
actor, director
- Birth name:
- Vitold Alfonsovich Polonsky
- Born:
- 1879
- Died:
- 1919-01-05, Odesa, Ukraine
- Professions:
- actor, director
Biography
A lantern-slide of Old-Russian elegance, Vitold Polonsky first drew breath in 1879 and quickly learned to make silence speak louder than words. By 1915 he had bewitched pre-Revolutionary audiences as the tormented hero of *After Death*, followed a year later by the double-edged charm he brought to *Her Sister’s Rival*. In 1918 he stepped behind the camera as well, guiding the unfinished melody of *Pesn lyubvi nedopetaya* before fate cut his own score short. On 5 January 1919, in an Odesa still echoing with civil-war gunfire, the screen finally dimmed on one of Russian cinema’s earliest stars.
