Mikhail Zharov was born on November 27, 1899 in the family of a native of Nikolaev orphanage and a worker from former serfs. His father worked as a printer in a printing house and attached Michael there. The whole family ardently loved literature and art, and young Misha Zharov arranged performances in the courtyard and played scenes. Then he started dreaming about theater.
In 1915, Zharov was in the theater “Opera S.I. Zimin”. However, he served there not as an actor, but as an assistant to Zimin himself: he performed various errands and distributed tickets for the poor. Zharov was rarely allowed on the stage and only in small roles. In the same year, Mikhail Zharov was lucky to star in a movie. At the invitation of the film crew of the opera “Pskovityanka”, he portrayed the oprichnik, again, performing in a small episode.
During the Revolution, many studios were closed. Mikhail Zharov received an invitation to work in the First Mobile Theater of the Red Army and went to the Eastern Front. He returned in 1919 with his wife, Dina, who was two years older than him. In their marriage, a few years later, a son Eugene was born, who became, like his father, an actor.
The creative potential of Mikhail Zharov was revealed more and more, the actor showed his capabilities to the Maly Theatre, where he worked since 1938. He successfully coped with the classical repertoire, playing in the plays “Wolves and Sheep” (1941), “The Inspector” (1946), “Heart is not a stone” (1954), etc.
Mikhail Zharov was also successful in cinema. In 1925, he played his first major role in the film The Way to Happiness. Since that time, he has appeared in dozens of films, creating different images of heroes: from the sexy in the film comic “Miss Mend” to the clerk of Dymba in “The Return of Maxim”. The 1930s were the most successful years for Zharov. Then he was in high demand. He was invited by the most famous directors. Then he starred in the image of the mischievous Kudryash in the film “Thunderstorm” (1934) and the courtier Menshikov in the historical film “Peter the First” (1937).
During the war, Mikhail Zharov continued to film. Over the years, he gave the cinema a lot of mischievous heroes with a combative character and optimism. One of these films is the comedy “Twins” (1945), in which Zharov played with Lyudmila Tselikhovskaya, who later became his second wife.
In the 1950s, Zharov experienced a brief pause in cinema related to his personal life. One day he met with Maya, a girl who had her whole family repressed. The support of Maya’s parents led to threats against the actor and a ban on acting in films. However, after the death of Stalin, he again gave the audience stunning images of heroes in his performance. The most striking of them was Aniskin from the detective “Aniskin and Fantomas” (1974). This was his last big role. December 15, 1981 Mikhail Zharov died.