Avangard Leontiev

Avangard Nikolaevich Leontiev is a Soviet and Russian theater and film actor, teacher, and professor, born on February 27, 1947, in Moscow. In 1995, he was designated People's Artist of the Russian Federation and received the State Prize of the Russian Federation.

Leontiev brought his stage work to Broadway during the 1996–1997 season, appearing in productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters.

His film career spans more than four decades, beginning with a small role in Train Stop – Two Minutes in 1972. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he took on a range of parts, including Solomon in Little Tragedies (1979), Alexeyev in A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov (1980), a photographer in Alone and Unarmed (1984), the narrator in The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1984), and an official in St. Petersburg in Dark Eyes (1987). He played Zaremba in The Parrot Speaking Yiddish in 1990 and appeared as a chauffeur in the 1994 Nikita Mikhalkov film Burnt by the Sun. The Barber of Siberia (1998) cast him as Andrei's uncle.

Leontiev continued working steadily into the 2000s and beyond, with roles including a manager in Turning (2002), Anatoly Lunacharsky in Yesenin (2005), and Paul I of Russia in Adjutants of Love (2005). Later credits include a prestidigitator in Sunstroke (2014), Yuri Levitan in The Age of Pioneers (2017), and Veniamin in Van Goghs (2018).