Could a Senegalese from Morocco, who once went on tour with a circus back in Tsarist Russia, have imagined that he would become a star of Soviet cinema? Hardly. But such a fantastic story really did happen in the real life of Kador Ben-Salim, whose biography, however, and today remains without beginning and end.
The young man first traveled to Russia in 1912: Moulay Said’s troupe of Moroccan jumpers successfully toured the cities of the Russian Empire. One of them - Kador Ben-Salim - became so attached to the country that he decided to stay. It is known that, before his career in the circus, he managed to work as a sailor and performed with a street troupe of artists. In 1916, he had already joined famous acrobat Alexander Sosin’s team in Verny (as Alma-Ata was then called). There, he performed with the number ‘Argentine Tango’, but his soul yearned for something more than dancing in the arena. So, Kador enlisted as a volunteer in the Red Army, went to the front as part of Vasily Chapayev’s famous division.
The great-granddaughter of the latter in her book ‘My Unknown Chapaev’ mentions that many foreigners served in the division and even kept a photo of a dark-skinned man "named Jonik". On the battlefield, an almost comical story happened with Kador: because of a leg injury, he did not have time to hide from the White Guards and, so, pretended to be dead. Without waiting for the enemy to leave, he began to move, terrifying everyone.
"At headquarters, they reported that they had seen a man who had risen from the dead on the battlefield. The commander ordered to search for the 'red devil' and the order was executed. The dead man, it turned out, speaks fluent French and English, very clever and cunning," Sosin recollected in his memoirs.
Returning to a peaceful life, Ben-Salim found himself in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) and began to perform at the local circus - already in the role of a boxer under the pseudonym ‘Tom Jackson’. But, in 1922, his life took a sharp turn: director Ivan Perestiani offered circus performers to star in the screen adaptation of the super-popular book ‘Red Devils’ by Pavel Blyakhin about the fighters of the First Cavalry Army.
All the stunts in the first Soviet ‘Eastern’ were performed by the actors themselves. Kador had to cross a mountain gorge on a rope, made death-defying jumps from rocks and ran along the roof of a speeding train. The movie instantly became a hit: it was dubbed "the miracle of Soviet cinematography" and the eager public stood in huge lines to buy a ticket.
Tiflis circus performers starred in four more movies - ‘Savur-Grave’, the sequel to ‘Red Devils’, ‘The Crime of Princess Shirvan’, ‘The Punishment of Princess Shirvan’ and ‘Illan-Dili’.
Ben-Salim's career continued to rise. He became the first actor whose portrait was printed on the cover of ‘Soviet Screen’, an illustrated magazine about the Soviet movie industry. Ben-Salim went on to star in several more movies. Including playing the role of a lackey in ‘Mr. Lloyd's Flight’ (1927) - a silent film about the vices of the bourgeoisie. And ‘The Return of Nathan Becker’ (1932), in turn, was about how Byelorussia was building socialism.
In the 1930's, traces of the actor are lost. He gave up acting and returned to performing in the circus and traveling around the country. But, where he eventually found refuge is not known. Perhaps, he went to a place that required his many talents - soldier, acrobat, boxer, actor. In history, however, he remains the first dark-skinned Soviet actor.
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