Honored Artist of the RSFSR (29.03.1966). People's Artist of the RSFSR (16.04.1984). Sister of Honored Artist of the RSFSR Pavel Petrovich Pankov (1922-1978). She studied at Leningrad State University in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, then transferred to the Polytechnic Institute in the Department of Metallurgy (graduated in 1939). In Moscow she entered the Shchepkin School at the Maly Theatre, studying in the class of K.A. Zubov and A.P. Gruzinsky. She was a participant in the Great Patriotic War. From 1943 she served in the troupe of the Maly Theatre (Pankova was recalled from the front-line theatre when Nikolai Pogodin brought his play The Creation of the World to the Maly Theatre).

The young actress was entrusted with the role of the old woman Semyonovna - the first serious age role in the repertoire of the beginning actress, which determined her future range. Over more than half a century of service to a single stage, Tatyana Petrovna Pankova played more than a hundred roles, and each of them, by the admission of critics and audiences, became an event. Tatyana Pankova's true masterpiece in cinema remained the role of Princess Annenkova in the film The Star of Captivating Happiness. In the 1990s the actress often appeared in TV series in small roles.