Soviet, Georgian film actor, theater, film, animation director, animator, screenwriter, sculptor, teacher; People's Artist of the USSR (1948). Winner of five Stalin Prizes (1941, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1950).

In 1909 he graduated from the Tiflis vocational school. In 1912 he graduated from the Tiflis School of Painting and Sculpture (now the Tbilisi Academy of Arts), a student of Yakov Nikoladze. Since 1915 he worked in the theaters of Tiflis, Kutaisi and Batumi as an actor, director and artist.