Ivan Gerasimovich Lapikov (7 July 19222 May 1993) was a Soviet and Russian actor and People's Artist of the USSR for the year 1982.
Lapikov was born in the village of Gorny Balykley, near Tsaritsyn (now â Dubovsky District, Volgograd Oblast). He spent his childhood in Stalingrad.
In 1939, he enrolled in drama school in Kharkov, where he studied for the following two years. After the World War II began, Ivan started to work in the Gorky Drama Theater (Stalingrad). There he worked until he moved to Moscow in 1963. In Moscow Lapikov joined the Film Actor's Theater-Studio.
His first role in cinema was in the film The Reserve Player (1954). After The Chairman by Alexey Saltykov (1964), where the actor had played the brother of the lead character, Lapikov became famous. Later he created a whole gallery of the Russian characters: playing Kirill in Andrei Rublev, Lyagavy in The Brothers Karamazov, Pankrat Nazarov in Eternal Call, and many other roles.
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