A sort of silent era Tor Johnson, hulking (reportedly 6'4"), Latvian-born Ivan Linow parlayed his experiences as a champion wrestler into a lucrative screen career, providing menace -- or in some cases, Scandinavian comedy bits -- to a host of action-melodramas between 1921 and 1935. Among Linow's more memorable assignments were the Russian immigrant in In Old Arizona (1929) and the Bolshevik Sanovich in The Cock-Eyed World (1929). He died of a heart attack in London in 1940.
Ivan Linow
Share on