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Nikolai Nikolaevich Kryukov was born on July 8, 1915, in a village in Tver province, USSR, to farming parents. As a child, he enjoyed silent films. In 1930, he chose to pursue acting and relocated to Leningrad. Throughout the 1930s, he worked at the "Sevkabel" plant in Leningrad while also attending acting classes at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT), graduating in 1935. From 1936 to 1941, he was a permanent member of E. Radlov's theatre troupe and later performed at the Lensoveta Theatre in Leningrad. Kryukov made his film debut in 1940 with 'Politruk Kolyvanov,' though the film remained unfinished due to the outbreak of World War II.
During the siege of Leningrad in WWII, Kryukov continued acting. Early in 1942, he was evacuated to Pyatigorsk but was captured by the advancing Nazi forces and taken to Germany as a prisoner of war. While in Germany, he acted until the war's end, after which he was repatriated to the Soviet Union along with five million other POWs.
Post-war, Kryukov underwent interrogation by Red Army intelligence and the KGB before being permitted to resume his stage career with various theatre companies in Tbilisi, Tver, Rostov, and Riga. He was barred from working in Leningrad until after Joseph Stalin's death and the subsequent political reforms under Nikita Khrushchev. In 1958, Kryukov returned to Leningrad and joined Lenfilm Studios as a staff actor. He gained recognition for roles in films such as Andromeda Nebula (1967), Devushka i Grand (1982), and the popular Russian Sherlock Holmes series.
Kryukov was married to actress Lilia Gurova, and they resided in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was honored as an Honorable Actor of Russia in 1992 and was highly respected in his field. He passed away from heart failure on April 30, 1993, and was buried at Serafimovskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg.
