Obid Jalilov

Obid Jalilov was born in Tashkent on 10 November 1896. Between 1918 and 1920 he joined the Uzbek drama troupe led by Mannon Uygur; sources give different years for his arrival.

He later became one of the leading actors of the Uzbek State Drama Theatre in Tashkent (named after Hamza from the 1930s) and stayed with it for the rest of his life. On stage he played Podkolesin in Gogol’s “The Marriage”, Vershinin in Vsevolod Ivanov’s “Armoured Train 14-69”, Salihboy in Hamza’s play “The Rich Man and the Farmhand” and Claudius in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. He is said to have played Salihboy more than five hundred times.

One of his best-known stage roles was the vizier Majdiddin in “Alisher Navoi” by Uygun and Izzat Sultanov. For that part he received a Stalin Prize, second class, in 1949. He had been named People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1939.

Jalilov also worked extensively in Uzbek cinema, appearing in “Azamat”, “Tahir and Zuhra”, “Alisher Navoi”, “The Rich Man and the Farmhand”, “When the Roses Bloom”, “You Are Not an Orphan” and other films. He was known for his psychologically detailed portrayals of complex and negative characters, and created some one hundred and fifty roles on stage and screen.

His state decorations include two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (1951, 1959) and two Orders of the Badge of Honour. Obid Jalilov died in Tashkent on 27 September 1963 and was buried in the Chigatay cemetery.