Kevork Malikyan

Malikyan was born to Armenian parents in Diyarbakır, Turkey. When he was 10 years old, an archbishop decided to open a religious seminary in Üsküdar, Istanbul, with the intention of taking in the poor children of Armenian parents from various parts of Turkey and bringing them up as priests. Malikyan was questioned by a priest who wanted to determine whether or not he was a good candidate for the priesthood. His father told him to go to the seminary because he could not afford to give him an education due to financial problems. Though Malikyan was worried because he had no friends in Istanbul and had to leave his parents behind, he went to the city to become a priest.

Malikyan was sent to the Karagözyan Orphanage in Şişli where he spent two years before attending the religious seminary in Üsküdar. In the seminary, there was a small stage where the students acted in Turkish and Armenian. When he was 16, an Anglican priest was invited to the school to teach them English. He was an Oxford graduate who wrote history books. The man was also fond of acting and had prepared Richard III by Shakespeare in English, wherein Malikyan played Richard. The priest must have liked Malikyan's acting, because he told the headmaster of the school that Malikyan should become an actor rather than a priest. The patriarch asked Malikyan his opinion on the matter, but Malikyan was unsure because of financial concerns. Father Harding, a British priest, found him a scholarship in Britain.

Malikyan graduated from the Surp Haç Armenian High School in Istanbul, then moved to London in 1963 for acting education. At the drama school Rose Bruford College, he received diplomas for acting and teaching. Malikyan made his first television appearance in an episode of the British historical drama The Portrait of a Lady in 1968, playing the role of ‘servant’. Throughout the last years of the 1960s Malikyan made other numerous television appearances including Doctor Who, The Saint, and The Avengers. Malikyan got his big break in the British film The Man Who Haunted Himself in 1970, starring Roger Moore, in which Malikyan played Luigi the butler of the Pelham family.

In 1977, Malikyan embarked on his most notable role on British television, in the ITV sitcom Mind Your Language, which was about an adult education centre and followed the story to the ‘English as a foreign language’ class. In the series Malikyan played Maximilian (Max) Papandrious, a Greek shipping worker from Athens. The show was very successful and at its height attracted 18 million viewers, Malikyan appeared in 29 episodes from 1977 to the series conclusion in 1979. Although the series was briefly revived in 1986 he did not make any appearances in it. Malikyan's next big film role came in the 1978 prison film Midnight Express, in which he played the part of the prosecutor at Billy Hayes's trial. The film was directed by Alan Parker and starred Brad Davis, Irene Miracle and Bo Hopkins. The film was very popular and went on to win two Academy Awards. His performance did not go unnoticed, one director who especially noticed him was Steven Spielberg. Malikyan tried to audition for the part of Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but was prevented from doing so by heavy traffic.

In 1988, Spielberg cast Malikyan in the third in the Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which he played Kazim, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, an organization that protects the Holy Grail. Throughout the 1990s Malikyan appeared in various television programs including the sitcom Birds of a Feather, and The Final Cut. In 2002, he featured alongside Steven Seagal in the American Action film, Belly of the Beast, but the film was not well received by the critics. Two years later Malikyan appeared in the 2004 remake of the 1965 film of the same name, Flight of the Phoenix in which he played Rady. The film received mixed reviews and performed poorly at the box-office. During his career, Malikyan has performed in a number of Shakespeare plays including Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre in 2010. Malikyan also played in a number of roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company production, Arabian Nights (December 2009 – January 2010), at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Malikyan appeared as Inspector Durmaz in the 2012 action-thriller film Taken 2, which was a sequel of the highly successful 2008 film.

Two years later Malikyan appeared in the epic biblical film Exodus: Gods and Kings in which he played Jethro. The film was based on the Book of Exodus and was directed by Ridley Scott. The same year he starred alongside Tahar Rahim and Simon Abkarian in the internationally co-produced drama film The Cut. In 2016, Malikyan featured in the historical drama The Promise which was set in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.