Hamza Umarov

Hamza Umarov was born on 17 December 1925 in Kokand. In 1943, while still in the tenth grade, he began studying at the film acting school attached to the Tashkent film studio. He then studied acting at the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute, graduating in 1951. He took part in the Second World War.

From 1950 he worked as an actor, and later also as a director, at the Muqimiy Uzbek Musical Theatre and was among those who stood at its beginnings. He played about a hundred roles on stage and directed eight productions; he also wrote several plays, among them “Bag'ri tosh”, “Hayot yo'li”, “Dil tortsa”, “Yor yurgan ko'chalar” and “Tong farzandlari”.

He came to cinema in 1956 with “Sacred Blood”. Over the following decades he played dozens of roles, among them “The Whole Neighbourhood Is Talking About It” (1960), Hamid in “Past Days” (1969), “The Extraordinary Commissar” (1970), “The Adventures of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (1979) and “Password: Hotel Regina” (1983). For Hamid in “Past Days” he received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR in 1970.

Umarov was also known as a master of dubbing: sources say he voiced more than a thousand roles in Uzbek. He was named Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1964 and People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1967. Hamza Umarov died in Tashkent in 1987; on 28 May 2026 he was posthumously awarded the Order “For Outstanding Merit”. In 2024 the National Film Fund made a documentary about his life and work.