Rahim Pirmuhamedov

Rahim Pirmuhamedov was born on 20 December 1896 in Tashkent (some sources give the date as 1 January 1897). He began his stage career in 1918–1919 in the Uzbek troupe of the Karl Marx Theatre and also played in the theatres of Samarkand and Namangan.

Between 1923 and 1927 he organised several theatre companies in Tashkent. From 1927 he turned to cinema and worked at the Uzbekfilm studio, playing his first parts in silent films such as “The Jackals of Ravat” (the bandit chief Akram Khan), “The Covered Wagon” and “The Leper”. In 1930 he graduated from the Uzbek State Drama Studio in Moscow and afterwards worked at the Hamza Theatre in Tashkent.

In the sound era he became one of the most frequently cast character actors of Uzbek cinema. In 1937 he played the militiaman Rahim in “The Oath”, the first Uzbek sound film, and he also appeared in “Nasreddin in Bukhara” (1943), “The Adventures of Nasreddin” (1946), “Alisher Navoi” (1947), “Avicenna” (1956), “Hamza” (1961), “The Poem of Two Hearts” (1966) and “Bygone Days” (1969). Between 1927 and 1971 he acted in more than forty films, mostly in episodic and character roles; his last film was “Shiddat” (1971).

He was named Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1939), People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1948) and People’s Artist of the USSR (1967), and was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1945. He received the Order of the Badge of Honour twice, one of them on 18 March 1959. In 1969 Uzbekfilm made a documentary about him, “The Actor”.

Rahim Pirmuhamedov died in Tashkent on 16 February 1972 and is buried in the Chigatay cemetery. In 2003 he was posthumously awarded the Order “For Outstanding Merit” (Buyuk xizmatlari uchun).