[2] In Yevgeny Tashkov's Thirst (1959), based on real events, Tikhonov, in the first of his spy roles, portrays a scout in an operation to free an Odessa water plant from the Nazis.

[2] In Two Lives (1961) Tikhonov plays the less fortunate of two men who unwittingly meet in France, 40-odd years after fighting on opposite sides of the 1917 Revolution.

[2] Rostotsky's We'll Live Till Monday (1968), in which a history teacher plans to defend a student at a disciplinary meeting, earned Tikhonov a state prize.

But Tikhonov reportedly got the role only at the suggestion of the Minister of Culture when Innokenty Smoktunovsky opted for Kozintsev's Hamlet and Oleg Strizhenov was also unavailable.

[2] 1977 saw a change of pace with Rostotsky's Oscar-nominated White Bim the Black Ear, in which Tikhonov played a middle-aged writer who is "adopted" by a non-pedigree setter puppy.

[2] Though he was often typecast as militiamen or spies, there were good roles among them, such as the KGB general in the cold-war thriller TaSS is authorised to announce (1984), another television series based on a Semyonov novel.

[2] In later years he was able to display a wider range, including the bishop in Besy, a film version of Dostoyevsky's The Devils (1992) and Charlemagne, in the Ubit Drakona, (To Kill a Dragon, 1998) after Evgeny Shvarts's wartime satire.