Vladislav Strzhelchik

Vladislav Strzhelchik was a Russian actor known for his portrayal of Napoleon in the epic film War and Peace (1965) by director Sergey Bondarchuk. He was born Vladislav Ignatyevich Strzhelchik on January 31, 1921, in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), Russia. His father, Ignat Strzhelchik, was interned in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) after the First World War, he was a Polish Catholic and discreetly attended the Catholic service in Leningrad. Young Strzhelchik was brought up in a highly cultural atmosphere of his parents home, he was fond of literature and theatre, and had a dream about acting on stage, and eventually started playing in amateur drama at high school. In 1937 he was admitted to the Acting Studio of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre in Leningrad. There his acting teachers were Aleksei Dikij, and the legendary Chapaev, Boris Babochkin. Strzhelchik worked at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) through his entire acting career beginning in 1938 and ending in 1995, the year he died. His studies