Georgiy Zhzhonov

In 2005, Zhzhonov spent his 90th birthday acting in the Russian Army Theatre. Later that day, he was invited to the Kremlin to be invested with the highest civilian decoration of Russia. During a conversation that followed, President Putin admitted that Zhzhonov's roles had prompted him to become an intelligence officer.

He died of lung cancer on 8 December 2005, and was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

He was appointed People's Artist of the USSR in 1980.

He started taking on cameo roles in films. In 1966 his role as a compassionate traffic warden in Eldar Ryazanov's comedy Beware of the Car was noticed. In 1968 and he played the spy Mikhail Tulyev in The Secret Agent's Blunder (Resident's Mistake), directed by Venyamin Dorman [ru]. This was the first of a quartet of films based around the same character. The sequel, Secret Agent's Destiny (or Resident's Way) was released in 1970, with Resident Return (Resident Is Back) in 1982 and End of the Resident Project [ru] in 1986.

He returned to Leningrad around 1954, first working at the regional drama theatre, then Lensovet Theatre, until 1962.

He was again arrested in 1949 and this time exiled to Norilsk, where he took stage roles with the local drama theatre until 1953. He was finally exonerated at the age of 38 (around 1953).

In 1936, Zhzhonov,s brother Boris, a Leningrad University student, was arrested for "anti-Soviet activities and terrorist leanings", during a period of political repression by the government in the wake of the assassination of Sergei Kirov. Their parents and Georgiy were exiled to Kazakhstan; however, Georgiy, instead he headed to the set of Komsomolsk, a film being made by Gerasimov in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

After the murder of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Stalin's first Great Purge began. As part of this, after his brother Boris was condemned, the whole family was exiled to Kasakhstan. In 1938, Zhzhonov was arrested on political motives was forced to confess, and sentenced to five years in the gulag at Kolyma. Put to work as a logger and gold miner, he managed to survive, unlike his brother Boris, who died of exhaustion in Vorkuta, and another brother who was executed by firing squad. Just before Victory Day (9 May) in spring 1945, Zhzhonov was released on parole and sent to work at the Magadan Theatre. Two years later he was fully released, thanks to the efforts of Gerasimov (although banned from living in larger industrial cities), and went to Sverdlovsk. Here he was able to do some film acting when the studios were open.

Georgiy Stepanovich Zhzhonov (Russian: Гео́ргий Степа́нович Жжёнов, IPA: [ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj sʲtʲɪˈpanəvʲɪdʑ ˈʐːonəf]; 22 March 1915 – 8 December 2005), was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor and writer. He is known for playing the spy Mikhail Tulyev in the "Resident" quartet of films, Beware of the Car (1966), The Hot Snow (1973), and many others, and was a popular actor. He was appointed People's Artist of the USSR in 1980.

Zhzhonov was born on 22 March 1915, and, like many of his peers, finished school in grade seven. He then studied acrobatics at the Leningrad College of Circus and Estrada Arts, and started to give performances with a friend. There he was spotted by film director Eduard Ioganson in 1932, and asked him to play the part a tractor driver in the film Hero's Mistake. After this break, Zhzhonov was accepted by the Leningrad Theatrical School, where he studied under renowned director Sergei Gerasimov, graduating in 1935.