Background
Alexander Alexeyevich Pozharov was born on April 16, 1874 in Voronezh, Russian Federation. He was born in the family of a railroad engineer.
1925
As Quasimodo. Russian Civil War and early 1920s brought forward new names and innovations in theatre; Maly rejected experiment and remained a traditional old-school drama theatre despised by left-wing critics. Ostuzhev experienced a personal and professional crisis; he retired from his earlier shows, believing that he was too old to play young lovers, and could not secure new, more appropriate, parts in the atmosphere of increased theatrical rivalry. He did not make headlines until the 1923 premiere of Iron Wall by Runda-Alekseev (as Crown Prince) and the 1925 part of Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Othello became a late breakthrough for the sixty-year-old actor. "The resonance was unheard of: all Moscow was at the door of the Maly Theatre, the queues formed since dawn." Maly Theatre veterans said that publicity of Othello surpassed the fame of best performances by Alexander Yuzhin and Maria Yermolova. During the first night (December 10, 1935) Ostuzhev received thirty-seven curtain calls. By December 21, 1937, Maly Theatre produced a record run of 100 performances, although Ostuzhev himself suffered a heart attack on stage in the summer of 1936 and was incapacitated for several months. Ostuzhev played an Othello "who was meant to inspire love"; he reasoned that "Othello believed that in killing Desdemona he is destroying the source of evil but in the end his suicide is his punishment of the source of evil in himself".
Alexander Alexeyevich Pozharov was born on April 16, 1874 in Voronezh, Russian Federation. He was born in the family of a railroad engineer.
After two years in high school Alexander Alexeyevich was expelled after a conflict with the schoolmaster and had to rely on accidental jobs to make a living. He played as an amateur at a local drama theatre where he was spotted by Alexander Yuzhin. Yuzhin invited Alexander Alexeyevich to Maly Theatre College of Acting in Moscow and granted him a scholarship of 300 roubles annually. He trained at the College of Acting under Alexander Lensky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko for two years.
In 1898 Lensky set up his own company of actors at Maly Theatre, inviting Alexander Alexeyevich. Young actor adopted stage name Ostuzhev (based on Russian: стужа/stuzha, English: frost), antonymous to his real surname (based on Russian: пожар/pozhar, English: fire). Most common version, later retold by Alexander Alexeyevich himself, connects the choice with the director's fear of the public mistaking the actor's real surname with a fire alarm call.
In 1901 the media named him the perfect Romeo (his first top billing at Maly), but soon his explosive personality backfired: Alexander Alexeyevich physically assaulted another actor and was forced to leave Maly. He joined the private Korsch Theatre company for the 1901–1902 season and was later readmitted to Maly, where he would play for the next five decades.
Young Alexander Alexeyevich Pozharov was admired for his voice. Tommaso Salvini who watched Alexander Alexeyevich as Cassio in 1900 rehearsals of Othello, seriously advised him to pursue a career in bel canto singing. However, Vsevolod Meyerhold argued that Alexander Alexeyevich "would have been a better actor had he not had such a beautiful voice" and branded his style "declamatory singsong a la Ostuzhev".
