Evgeniy Matveyev

Yevgeny Matveyev PAU
1944, during military service
Born	Yevgeny Semyonovich Matveyev 8 March 1922 Novoukrainka, Kherson Oblast, Ukrainian SSR
Died	1 June 2003(2003-06-01) (aged 81) Moscow, Russia
Occupation	Actor, film director, screenwriter
Years active	1939–1999
Notable work	Earthly Love (1975) Destiny (1977)
Title	People's Artist of the USSR (1974)
Spouse(s)	Lidiya Alexeyevna Matveyeva (m. 1947)
Parent(s)	Semyon Kalinovich Matveyev Nadezhda Fyodorovna Kovalenko
Awards	USSR State Prize (1977)
Military career
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Service/branch	Soviet Army
Years of service	1941-1946
Rank	Lieutenant

Yevgeny Semyonovich Matveyev (Russian: Евгений Семёнович Матвеев, Ukrainian: Євген Семенович Матвеев; 8 March 1922 – 1 June 2003) was a Soviet and Russian actor and film director who was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1974. He is best known as Nagulnov in Podniataya Tselina, based on Mikhail Sholokhov's novel; and Nekhludov in Resurrection (Russian: Воскресение), based on Leo Tolstoy's novel.

Yevgeny Matveyev was born in the village of Novoukrainka in the Mykolaiv Governorate of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kherson Oblast, Ukraine) to Semyon Kalinovich Matveyev, a Red Army serviceman was stationed in the region at the end of the Russian Civil War, Nadezhda Fyodorovna Kovalenko, a local peasant woman, on 8 March 1922. His father left Nadezhda shortly after he was born.

He attended school in the nearby town of Tsyurupinsk, where he saw his first play and left school after the ninth grade to pursue a career in acting.

He made his first step on the professional stage at the Kherson Theater, in 1939. One of his first small stage roles was a part of a musician in Bestalanna. Russian actor Nikolai Cherkasov noticed the young talent and advised Matveyev to continue his acting career, by moving to Kiev to study with Alexander Dovzhenko. Doing so, Matveyev studied under Dovzhenko at the acting school of the Kiev Film Studio in 1940 and 1941.