Yakov Protazanov
actor, director, writer
- Birth name:
- Yakov Aleksandrovich Protazanov
- Born:
- 1881-02-04, Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]
- Died:
- 1945-08-09, Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]
- Professions:
- actor, director, writer
Biography
Moscow, February 4, 1881: Yakov Protazanov enters the world and, almost before the ink dries on his birth certificate, begins plotting how to rearrange reality one frame at a time. Over the next forty-odd years he will steer silent fugitives through A Narrow Escape (1920), skewer mercenary marriage in Without Dowry (1937), and turn the calendar upside-down for The Holiday of St. Jorgen (1930). Writer, director, conjurer of images—he keeps the cameras turning until August 9, 1945, when the final reel closes in the same city that first heard his cry.
