Zikir Muhammadjonov

Zikir (Zakir) Muhammadjonov was born in Tashkent in 1921; some sources give his birthday as 1 January, others as 14 August. He acted in his school's amateur theatre, joined the company of the Hamza State Uzbek Drama Theatre in 1938 and stayed with it for the rest of his life.

During the war (1941–1943) he worked as a fitter at an aircraft factory in Tashkent. In 1949 he graduated from the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute, studying by day and playing at the theatre in the evenings.

On stage he played Temur Malik (Jaloliddin), Furqat, Hamza, Ferdinand (Schiller's Intrigue and Love), Horatio and Laertes (Hamlet), Boris (Ostrovsky's The Storm), Alisher Navoi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Mirzo Ulugbek, Husayn Bayqara and Amir Timur, and he created the title role in Komil Yashin's play General Rahimov. For Lenin in Yashin's Dawn of the Revolution he received the USSR State Prize in 1977.

From 1956 he also worked in film, appearing in more than forty pictures. His best-known screen role is Sabir Rahimov in General Rahimov (1967); for it he was given a second (supplementary) prize for a male role at the 3rd All-Union Film Festival in Leningrad in 1968. At the Uzbekfilm studio he dubbed many films.

He became Honoured Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1956, People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1962 and People's Artist of the USSR in 1977. He received the Order of Lenin (1986), two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (1970, 1975) and the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1989). In 1977–1982 he chaired the Union of Theatre Workers of Uzbekistan, and he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR of the 10th convocation.

In independent Uzbekistan he received the Order Do'stlik and the Order For Outstanding Merit (1998); by presidential decree of 25 August 2003 he was named Hero of Uzbekistan.

Zikir Muhammadjonov died in Tashkent on 23 August 2012 and was buried at the Chigatay cemetery.