Gleb Plaksin was born in Paris in 1925. His father was an officer in the tsarist army’s Hussars Regiment in the tsarist army. His mother was a nurse and the only woman to be a chevalier of the Order of St. George, three degrees. Gleb Plaksin studied piano at the Paris Conservatory. He knows six European languages: Russian, French, English, Italian, German and Romanian.
Gleb Plaksin joined the French Resistance right from the beginning of the Nazi occupation. From mid-1943, he fought with a partisan detachment in Normandy. When the allies landed he joined the U.S. army and became a private in the Delta attack company of the 1st Battalion of the U.S. 83rd Division’s 331st Regiment.
After the war in Europe ended, Gleb Plaksin worked with the Soviet Mission for repatriating prisoners of war and displaced persons. He then returned to Paris, taught music and performed concerts in France, Italy and Denmark. He has been a member of the French Union of Composers since 1947.
In 1955, he took Soviet citizenship. He worked as a musician and cinema actor, performing in 100 films, the most well known of which are “The Resident’s Mistake”, “The Resident’s Fate”, and “The Resident’s Return”, in which he played the German intelligence chief. He took part in dubbing some 210 films. In 2001, he was awarded the title “Merited Artist of the Russian Federation”.
He has been decorated with 23 Soviet, Russian, U.S. and French state awards, including the French medals the Cross of the Volunteer Combatant, “For Liberation”, the French Gratitude Medal, the Veteran’s Cross, the Croix de Guerre and others. He also holds the U.S. medal for Services in Battle.