Nikolai Kryukov was an Honored Artist of the RSFSR (13.05.1991). He began his working life at a factory, but in the 1930s he became seriously interested in theater and entered the studio at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater (graduated in 1935). From 1936 he was at the theater-studio under the direction of S.E. Radlov (from 1939, the Theater named after the Leningrad Soviet). He played leading roles and enjoyed great success in Leningrad. It was then that he first entered cinema: in 1938 he appeared in the film "Morskoy post," and in 1940 in the unfinished picture "Politruk Kolyvanov." But after he, along with the theater, found himself under occupation in Pyatigorsk and was then taken to Germany, he (like all the other actors of Radlov's theater) was not accepted by any Moscow or Leningrad theater. In 1956 he accepted S.E. Radlov's invitation and came to Riga. By that time he had already served in several provincial companies, played in theaters in Tbilisi, Tver, and Rostov-on-Don, played episodic roles in the films "Korabli shturmuyut bastiony" (1953) and "Neobyknovennoe leto" (1956), and worked in Leningrad in a theater housed in the building of the "Passage" (the very one where Radlov's theater was located from 1936 to 1942), later named after V.F.

Komissarzhevskaya. In 1958, after Radlov's death, he returned to Leningrad and was hired as an actor at the Lenfilm studio. Here, in 1943, began the second half of his creative life - in cinema, far more famous than the first. It began more than successfully - with the role of the pilot Ben Ensley in the film "The Last Inch," based on the short story of the same name by James Aldridge. The film brought him wide fame and the prize of the All-Union Film Festival for the best male role of the year. He had few leading roles, but thanks to his distinctive appearance, mastery of transformation, and persuasiveness, the images he created were easily and long remembered even in small episodes. He passed away in Saint Petersburg. The actor is buried at the Serafimovskoye Cemetery, next to the graves of naval officers.