Matti Pellonpää was born in Helsinki, Finland on 28.3.1951 and died in Vaasa, Finland on 13.7.1995 of a heart attack. He started his career in 1962 as an radio-theatre-actor at the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). In the 70's he worked in amateur theatres and in 1977 he graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy. Pellonpää was equally comfortable appearing on stage as well as film & tv. Moreover, he appeared in rock-bands in the 70s and was connected with Sleepy Sleepers, the band who became the Leningrad Cowboys.

From the beginning of 80's Pellonpää became a permanent figure in Mika and Aki Kaurismaki´s movies. Among others he had leading role in the movies: Shadows in Paradise, La Vie de Boheme and Take Care Of Your Scarf, Tatjana. Internationally, perhaps his most famous role was as the double crossing bastard of a band manager in Aki's 1989 cult road movie, Leningrad Cowboys Go America.

In 1993 Pellonpää was awarded the Felix from the European Film Academy as the Best European Male Actor of the Year.

In the 80s and 90s in Finland he became known as the country's number 1 bohemian. He lived in restaurants (in Helsinki the most trendy, of course) and from his regular expounded on life and everything & nothing. Conservative Finland could not get enough of stories about him, how he had no apartment and sometimes didn't even have his own clothes. Fact and fiction blurred until no-one remembered what was true about him.

Dying at the absurdly young age of 44 meant that European Cinema was robbed of one of its most promising stars. We are left with a body of work which really doesn't do justice to his talent. Indeed his last role in the sequel to Leningrad Cowboys Go America, the lazy and sometimes awful Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1993), summed up his career: a great performance in a masterpiece of shit!

He will be missed.

best of leningrad cowboys cd boxset - with playing cards