Tuti Yusupova

Tuti Yusupova was born on 10 March 1936 in Samarkand. She graduated from the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute; according to the website of the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre, her teachers were the director A. Tinzburg and the actor Toshkhoja Khojayev.

From 1957 until the end of her life she worked at the Hamza Tashkent Drama Theatre (today the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre). On stage she played about a hundred roles, among them Hafiza in Abdulla Qahhor's Silk Suzani and Hojar in his Voice from the Coffin, Sonya in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Qorasoch in Uygun's Doubt, Nuri in Oybek's Sacred Blood, Xonzoda in Hamza's The Rich Man and the Servant and Mastura in his Secrets of the Paranja, Luise in Schiller's Intrigue and Love, and Rahima in Utkir Umarbekov's Commission. Her best-known role with audiences was Sotti in the stage version of Said Ahmad's Uprising of the Daughters-in-Law.

She also took part in radio and television plays; the theatre says she played dozens of roles on the radio. Critics noted that she brought out the social and psychological sides of her characters.

She appeared in films from the 1980s. She became widely known as Kholida in Zulfikar Musakov's lyrical comedy Abdulladzhan, or Dedicated to Steven Spielberg (1991), and played mothers and grandmothers in Otamdan qolgan dalalar (1997), Oyijon (2001), Dilkhiroj (2002, directed by Yusup Razykov), Shabnam (2008) and Berlin–Akkurgan (2018). Media reports credit her with about a hundred film roles.

She was named Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1970 and People's Artist of Uzbekistan in 1993 (some sources give 1994). She received the orders El-yurt hurmati (2000), For Selfless Service (2014) and Labor Glory (2020).

Tuti Yusupova died on 15 March 2022 at the age of 86; the press service of the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre announced her death.