Ali Gurbanov

Ali Gurbanov was born in 1898 in the city of Tiflis. He began his acting career in 1914 with an amateur theatre troupe in Tiflis. He first stepped on stage, at the urging of Mohsun Sanani, in the amateur production "Gavey-i Ahangar", speaking only the single word "let''s go". In 1915 he drew attention by playing the role of Rustam bey in "O Olmasin, Bu Olsun" ("Not That One, But This One"). After this he began to be invited not only to drama productions but also to operas, operettas and evening performances, both as an actor and as a tar player. In 1917 the "Ittihad" drama society was founded in Tiflis, and that same year Ali Gurbanov was invited to join the troupe. With the "Ittihad" troupe he performed skilfully in "The Unfortunate Youth" (as the old peasant) and "The Magic Fairy" (as Niyaz). From 1918 Ali Gurbanov continued his acting career with the "Ibrat" drama society. In this troupe he worked alongside actors such as Mirzali Abbasov, Mirzakhan Guliyev, Mirseyfaddin Kirmanshahli and Ibrahim Isfahanli. There he played Haji Hasan ("The Dead"), Shahmar bey ("The Tragedy of Fakhraddin"), Shah Sultan Huseyn khan ("Nadir Shah"), Javad bey ("The Broken Union"), Askar bey ("Haji Gara") and other roles. The Tiflis theatre, which had operated as a troupe until 1921, was transformed that year into the Tiflis State Azerbaijani Drama Theatre. From that time Ali Gurbanov, along with other actors, became an actor of that theatre. As part of the Tiflis State Azerbaijani Drama Theatre he went on tour to Turkey in 1922 and to Iran in 1925. At the end of 1925 he was invited, by order of the Azerbaijan People''s Commissariat of Education, to the Azerbaijan State Drama Theatre, where he worked until the end of his life. Ali Gurbanov spent more than 50 years on stage. During this time he performed in nearly 200 different roles, some of them several hundred times. For example, he played the role of Vidadi 700 times, and the roles of Azizbayov and Haji Ahmad more than 350 times each. For more than 40 years the actor also appeared in films of the J. Jabbarli "Azerbaijanfilm" film studio. First cast in 1928 as the Ashug in "Haji Gara", Ali Gurbanov later created memorable characters in films including "The Villagers", "Almaz" (as Aftil), "New Horizon", "Sabuhi" (as Agalarov), "Bakhtiyar" (as Gurban), "To My Native People" (as the drilling master), "That''s How a Song Is Born" (as the blind ashug), "Under the Blazing Sun" (as Uncle Ali), "Black Stones" (as Master Ramazan), "Stepmother" (as the shepherd) and "The Secret of a Fortress" (as Grandfather Kamran), among others.