[3] Yevgeny Matveyev was born in the village of Novoukrainka in the Mykolaiv Governorate of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kherson Oblast, Ukraine) to Semyon Kalinovich Matveyev, a Russian Red Army serviceman was stationed in the region at the end of the Russian Civil War, and Nadezhda Fyodorovna Kovalenko, a Ukrainian peasant woman, on 8 March 1922.

Russian actor Nikolay Cherkasov noticed the young talent and advised Matveyev to continue his acting career, by moving to Kyiv to study with Alexander Dovzhenko.

His various roles on the stage included Neznamov in Alexander Ostrovsky's drama Bez viny vinovatye, Zvonorev in Port Arthur, Yarovoy in Love of Yarovoy by Trenyev, Rodon in an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Trofimov in Alyoshin's Leading Role, Stolbov in Autumn Sunrise, Erast in Ostrovsky's Heart Not a Stone, and Osvald in Ibsen's Ghosts.

Matveyev achieved greater fame when he starred as Nagulnov in Virgin Soil Upturned, and played the role of Prince Nekhludov in Mikhail Shveitser's Resurrection, an adaptation of Tolstoy's novel.

At the height of his fame, Matveyev's career as an actor came to a sudden end at a holiday celebration in Nikolaev, in what is now Ukraine: during a show, he fell off a malfunctioning cart; injuring his spine, crushing two disks, and jamming spinal nerves.

Though the Soviet government had classified him in the third group of individuals with disabilities, those persons who had lost some capacity but were still capable of working, generally part-time;[4] he quit performing on the stage and instead became a film director.

Among the many films Matveyev starred in during that period, perhaps Aleksei Saltykov's The Siberian Woman (Russian: Siberiachka), which garnered him a Best Actor award, and his part in Taming of the Fire, that of a factory director, show him at his best.

Undaunted, at the end of the 1980s, Matveyev returned to cinematography, filming a tragic melodrama Vessel of Patience (Russian: Чаша терпения) where he played a leading part, again with Olga Ostroumova as his partner.

Vessel of Patience was honored with a Spectator Sympathies Prize at the Constellation / Sozvezdie (Russian: Созвездие) film festival, but the picture remains relatively unknown.