Anastasiya Vertinskaya
Encyclopedia
Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya (born December 19, 1944, Moscow
, USSR), a Soviet and Russia
n actress whose mass popularity and high critical acclaim made her one of the most distinguished figures in the history of the 20th century Soviet cinema. In the 1990s, disillusioned with the state of cinema at home, she went to teach her art abroad and spent 12 years in France, England, USA and Switzerland. In 1988 Vertinskaya was designated People's Artist of Russia
; she is also an Order of Honour laureate (2005).
soon after her father, the famous singer-songwriter Alexander Vertinsky
returned from Harbin
in 1943 with his Georgian wife Lydia Vertinskaya (née Tzyrgvava) , a painter and an actress. Anastasiya and sister Marianna (one year her senior) spent first years of their lives in Moscow Metropol hotel; it was only in 1946 that the family's been granted a proper flat on Gorky St., 14.
Their childhood was quite happy: Anastasiya (according to IMDb biography) "was brought up in a multi-lingual family where she enjoyed an intellectually stimulating environment and a highly cultural atmosphere of her parents circle". Both sisters attended an ordinary school; music and foreign languages having been regarded as their educational program’s priorities by parents.
Vertinsky never scolded daughters for any of their failures, of which there were many since - as Anastasiya later remembered - she’s always been much more concerned with exploring her dad’s astonishing library than any of the school studies. In fact, Alexander (as Anastasiya later remembered) developed his own, highly stylised way of dealing with his daughters’ problems. "He used to say: 'I suffer greatly from the knowledge of your, girls, misbehaviour'. And I tried all my best to somehow harness this really nasty temper of mine - if only to relieve him from those great sufferings", she remembered in her 2008 interview.
for the role of Assol in Scarlet Sails
. The romantic teenage drama based on Alexander Grin
’s novel became an instant success, making Anastasiya a national celebrity. Many of the future stars of Soviet cinema, including Vasily Lanovoy
, Ivan Pereverzev
, Sergey Martinson
, and Oleg Anofriev, were in the cast, but, as critics noted, it was Vertinskaya's passionate performance that has given Scarlet Sails its timeless flavour. 23 million people viewed during its first year.
In 1962 Vertinskaya starred in Amphibian Man
, Gennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev's adaptation of Alexander Belyayev's book of the same title. Cast as Guttieres, a young woman in love with an amphibian man, Vertinskaya had to go through difficult late Autumn underwater shooting sessions and performed all by herself, without any stuntwomen. The film became the Soviet 1962 box-office blockbuster. "Vertinskaya was now a brand. People were going to the cinema to watch her, specifically," future husband Nikita Mikhalkov
later recalled. All this changed the teenage actress's life dramatically, not necessarily for the better. She later remembered:
In 1962 the actress joined the Moscow Pushkin Theater troupe. This meant that from then on she had to continuously tour the country with the then popular so-called "theater brigades". In 1963 Anastasiya Vertinskaya joined (not without a hitch, but with the help of Lyudmila Maksakova
, her elder sister Marianna’s friend) the Shchukin Theatrical School. The young actress's eagerness to act was, in her own words, "next to maniacal". Nikita Mikhalkov was one of her fellow students. They fell in love and married in 1966, only to be divorced three years later.
The role of Ophelia in the 1964 Grigori Kozintsev
film Hamlet
(starring Innokentiy Smoktunovsky) made Vertinskaya known internationally and proved to be a turning point in her career. The 20-year-old (still acting very much "on an unconscious level", as she later admitted) won universal appraisal for her performance. As Kozintsev later wrote, Vertinskaya’s strength was her "real 18 years", her "fragile purity and this whole Renaissance
look of hers". It was this experience that became Anastasiya Vertinskaya's creative milestone, something she had to continuously look up to and prove herself against. Working next to masters like Smoktunovsky proved to be invaluable in terms of learning, having introduced the young actress to many of what she called "this magic kitchen's secrets". "Ophelia made me realize for the first time ever that acting was indeed my destiny", she later said.
While still at the Shchukin Theatrical School, Anastasiya Vertinskaya played the role of petite Princess Bolkonsky in Sergey Bondarchuk's epic adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace
(1968). It was her highly sensual, touchingly naive portrayal that gave this character a new, humane dimension, which was in fact the director's idea.
Vertinskaya said it was War and Peace that taught her how to "create a deep tragic undercurrent in something that on the face of it bears no sign of tragedy whatsoever".
Less famous but still held in high esteem was her Kittie Scerbatzkaya in director Aleksandr Zarkhi
’s 1968 adaptation of Anna Karenina
. Vertinskaya also starred in several other films in the late 1960s including Hold Your Head Up! (Не горюй!, Georgy Daneliya), The Polynyn's Case (Случай с Полуниным, Konstantin Simonov
’s book adaptation, and The Preliminary Man (Преждевременный человек), A. Room's adaptation of Maxim Gorky
эs unfinished novel Yakov Bogomolov.
, where she stayed until 1980. The theatrical experience was, admittedly, of the utmost importance to the actress who never felt confident enough while acting in movies. "I was a slow developer", she confessed years later. In Sovremennik she starred as Olivia (Twelfth Night), Ranevskaya (The Cherry Orchard
) and Valentina (Mikhail Roshchin
’s Valentin Y Valentina).
In 1980 Vertinskaya left Sovremennik for the Moscow Art Theater. "It was only here that I acquired the adequate level of professionalism I was craving", she said in an interview years later. At MAT Vertinskaya made her own two roles of Chekhov
’s repertoire, traditionally regarded as difficult: Nina Zaretchaya (Seagull) and Yelena Andreevna (Uncle Vanya
). Critics praised Vertinskaya's performances - "charged emotionally, yet perfectly well controlled". Another stage triumph for Vertinskaya was Elmire in Molière
's Tartuffe
directed by Anatoly Efros
. Highly praised were Vertinskaya's Liza Protasova (Tolstoy's Living Corpse), Natasha (Alone with Everybody, Alexandr Gelman), Pat (Mother-of-Pearl Zinaida, Mikhail Roshchin). In 1989 Vertinskaya portrayed her own father in Mirage or Russian Pierrot’s way, a show that she herself wrote and directed to mark the centennial birthday anniversary of Alexander Vertinsky
.
Vertinskaya excelled in her Shakespearean roles. First, in a unique theatrical experiment staged by director Anatoly Efros at Taganka
, she appeared in two roles: Prospero and Ariel in the Shakespeare's The Tempest
(premiered at the Moscow Pushkin Museum
). Her Olivia in Peter James's Sheffield Theatre production of Twelfth Night (1975), better known to Russian audiences for the televised version of it, which premiered in 1978, is still regarded by many as unique and groundbreaking. The role in which Vertinskaya for the first time ever was allowed to demonstrate her comedic talent remains one of her personal favourites. The actress (according to the magazine 7 Days) portrayed her heroine "not as a sultry beauty but as Grace, infinitely charming and funny, full of boredom-related whims and flashes of sincerity, the product of her lively, inquisitive mind". Among the grand men of Soviet theatre who praised Vertinskaya’s unusual versatility was Anatoly Efros who once said the actress was "so physically natural and yet artistically graceful" that it was "almost unbelievable".
Occasionally, Vertinskaya remembered, she had to artificially "simplify" her facial features (even to stuff her nostrils with - well, stuff) so as to fit into some kind of Soviet "common heroine" stereotype. Even then, as one paper noted, "directors never knew what to do with this totally uncommon girl". "In those times, they demanded different kind of heroines — ruddy-faced cheerful activistkas", - the actress responded when asked about huge gaps in her working schedule in the early 1970s.
Vertinskaya’s next big hit came in 1978 when the film Nameless Star (an adaptation of Mihail Sebastian
's play) was premiered on Soviet TV. The film's director (and also a well-known actor) Mikhail Kozakov
gave Vertinskaya (with whom he was having a passionate love affair at the time) total freedom of improvisation, letting the two - Mona the character and Anastasiya the performer - almost merge. The film (where her partner was the popular actor Igor Kostolevsky
) was one the actress spoke of as one of her best-loved of all time. The film was not TV officials’ favourite, though.
Her next two films were The Gadfly
(1980), based on Ethel Lilian Voynich
's novel, where she played Jemma (her male counterpart being a then debutant, Andrey Kharitonov, who later staged her as a film director) and The Theft, based on a Jack London
play, starring Innokenty Smoktunovsky
.
As time went by, Vertinskaya was changing, feeling more and more dissatisfied with what was going on around her - on stage and beyond. Two decades later one critic called her a "symbol of the decades": "In the 60’s she was a Dream-girl, in the 70's - a Style emblem, in the 80's - a movie idol". But the general feeling of total frustration touched her also. Her later work, including Margarita in The Master and Margarita
(directed by Yuri Kara
and never officially released, 1994), another of her personal favourites, was being made against the background of general decline — in national cinema and culture in general.
, another well-known Russian actor, to give master classes of theatrical craftsmanship, she accepted it without a second thought. The next 12 years Vertinskaya spent teaching in England, France and Switzerland. Vertinskaya’s life having changed drastically, she later said she would have never come to regret her decision to quit the stage. "I realized one had to reinvent oneself literally seven times during one's lifetime, otherwise one won’t be able to fully realize oneself. Why should one sit and moan about how one’s never got good roles? You have to always turn your back to the scene that does not suit you", she said in a recent interview. Vertinkaya also spoke of how relieved she felt for having dropped this 'everlasting worry' about being screened or staged - continuously. "This eternal actor’s anxiety, it had finally left me", she confessed, speaking to TV Kultura correspondent.
Later Vertinskaya taught drama in Comédie-Française
(Théâtre de la Républic) and at Chekhov's school and in Switzerland’s School of European Cinema. Her play Chekhov, Act III, compiled of Third acts of Russian playwright’s three classic plays ran successfully in Nanterre des Amandiers. She spoke most warmly of her European students’ immense passion for Arts and determination - two qualities she said she seldom met in Russia.
In 2000 Vertinskaya returned home. Later she spoke of how she suffered almost physically of homesickness while abroad. Since then she performed on stage only once: it was the 2002 play Imago after M. Kurotchkin’s interpretation of Bernard Shaw
’s Pygmalion directed by Nina Tchusova. In 2009 Izvestiya intervew Vertinskaya spoke of the lack of interesting roles in the Russian theater and said she’d rather stay away from the stage at all rather than start playing ‘hitman’s mums’ (one such suggestion she did indeed received not long ago). "I’ve got no future plans connected with stage, but I see no personal drama in it. What worries me more, is that such actresses as Marina Neyolova or Lena Koreneva are out of work", she said.
Vertinskaya's major concern these days is the functioning of the Russian Actors Foundation charity she herself created in 1991. She’s also busy restoring and producing her father’s records (three of them have been released recently in France). In 2010 Vertinskaya is going to publish a book of Vertinsky’s poetry - something she’s been working on for five years. She’s also engaged in her son Stepan Mikhalkov’s restaurant business in Moscow, her passion for culinary art being well known.
' and 'anti-Soviet-looking Soviet beauty'. Anastasiya Vertinskaya's sensational 1961 debut left both cinema fans and critics equally enchanted, the latter being exceptionally lenient to the fifteen-year-old, hailed as the future star of the Soviet cinema. "No other actress could have played Assol. Her eyes, her profile, her thin arms… her flying gate – she was a real life 'girl of one's dream'", actress Natalya Selezneva remembered. Young girl's slight clumsiness looked more than natural on screen, while her strengths - 'natural gracefulness', 'youthful charms' and 'aura of other-worldliness' – went undisputed. “It was as if some kind of young flower blossomed on our eyes in the Soviet cinema,” film critic Andrei Plakhov
recalled years later.
Ophelia in Grigory Kozintsev's Hamlet
marked an important change in Vertinskaya's career and made critics scrutinize her phenomenon closely. Most agreed that what the director cunningly managed to do was turn the young drama student’s obvious lack of self-confidence into a strong artistic statement. As for assessing the overall result, specialists were divided. According to L. Nekhoroshev, "cast into the iron scheme of the director’s idea, like it was an iron corset of her Elizabethan dress, young actress failed to breathe freely in the air of high art she'd been submerged in". He had to agree, though, that "in this rather mechanical Ophelia some inner logic and harmony were quite alive". Conversely, critic E. Dobin regarded the young actress' work as high artistic achievement. "Fresh ingénue's natural helplessness was used by the director to become a distinctive feature of Ophelia's meek, vulnerable character… There was not a single dim or erratic note in young Vertinskaya's performance. Ophelia's image is crystal clear, as indeed is the actress' work, its deep transparency reminding that of a river the bottom of which this heroine is destined for", he wrote. In retrospect, this latter attitude prevailed. " Ophelia is probably one of the best in the history of theater and film. is extremely difficult for being seemingly unsubstantial next to those of Hamlet and other grandiose figures. Vertinskaya perfectly succeeded in making it fit in," critic A. Plakhov wrote.
Praised initially for her teenage charms, Vertinskaya quickly evolved into a diverse, versatile and highly original actress, garnering praise from all quarters, home and abroad. Vertinskaya's next, equally miniature, but for the same very reason highly significant role, that of Princess Bolkonskaya in Sergey Bondarchuk's War and Peace
epic garnered even more accolades. Critics noted a rare virtuosity with which "such a tragically fleeting, intrinsically unfulfilled character strikingly vivid" and, even more extraordinary, continuously developming in the course of just four laconic scenes. "In Princess Liza there is a lot of inner dynamics and total integrity, the latter being achieved by… leading through totally diverse scenes, united only by inner concept", Actors of Soviet Cinema (1967) almanac wrote.
Impressive was Vertinskaya's progress in theater. Her work in Sovremennik
(The Cherry Orchard
, Valentin and Valentina) made critics speak of "...this special gracefulness of the stage existence where outward technical virtuosity of every movement and the sense of deep psychological insight were perfectly combined". Critically lauded were her Russian literature classic heroines - Nina in The Seagull
, Elena in Uncle Vanya
. Exceedingly well-received was Vertinskaya’s Elmyra in Tartuffe
. There, according to the Soviet Theater magazine, she elevated her heroine "onto on an enormous aesthetic pedestal, presenting her as a kind of noblewoman of old French canvasses, inapproachable in her beauty and grace...". The same critic spoke of the combination of technical virtuosity and "craving for artistic perfection", of her unique ability to create "beauty devoid of frustration; gracefulness without flaw, based on emotional fullness and self-enjoyment". To Shakespeare's The Tempest
(produced by Anatoly Efros
at Taganka
) the actress (according to a critic) gave a "seal of beauty", having achieved in her performance "the harmony of gesture, sound and movement". All in all, critics agreed that the progress Vertinskaya made during her 20 years of stage work, "from charmful but one-dimensional Assol-Ophelia" to the versatile multi-faceted master of many genres was enormous. Unwilling to join the Soviet cinema mainstream, she continued to be slightly enigmatic, out of spotlight persona, which only added to her charisma.
One of Vertinskaya's 1970s creative high points was Countess Olyvia in Peter Brook-led Sovremennik production of The Twelfth Night. Buoyed by the English director's totally democratic, improvisational approach and the star-studded cast' energetics, Vertinskaya demonstrated the comedy actress potential (totally ignored by theater and film directors before). Konstantin Raikin
, though, thought Vertinskaya's Olyvia success was natural for what she played was actually her own self. "She is a very funny, ironic and naughty person, for once her own character fitted into a role perfectly", he said. Some critics expressed regret this comic side of hers had been ignore before. Totally natural and organic was Vertinskaya's Mona in Mikhail Kozakov's Nameless Star. The film itself had problems with the Soviet censorship but now is rated #64 in the Roskino's list of The Best Russian Films of All Time It was then that Efros spoke of Vertinskaya as being "so physically natural and at the same time so full of artistic grace that the combination seems unbelievable". Marveling at her ability to "harmonize gesture sound and motion" was (otherwise rather acerbic) actor Valentin Gaft
. Having maintained her reputation of the nation's "most secretive movie treasure", Vertinskaya through the years managed to avoid journalists and TV cameras, making her private life the subject of rumours and insinuations.
The Master and Margarita (1994) brought another part of the actress' credo forward that's been unknown before. According to V.Plotnikov, Vertinskaya (before this) "was victim to her origins: everybody saw in her a little Countess or a little Princess, while she herself often referred to herself as a natural witch... There'd been just one such role in theater, that of Victoria in Vampilov's Provincial Anecdotes: That was stunning: totally credible Russian folklore witch", he argued. Cinema critic Tatyana Moskvina agreed that "infernal shadows of Bulgakov's novel" fitted perfectly Vertinskaya who was a "natural-born Margarita", neither "good nor evil, just totally otherworldly". This 'hidden fire' of Bulgakov’s heroine "was burning throughout all of Vertinskaya's characters one way or another", she wrote.
. On December 19 on her 65th birthday both President Medvedev
and Premier Putin
sent her personal telegrams, speaking of "bright individuality", never waning popularity and "unique roles, extraordinarily powerful and deep".
, now a renowned Russian film director and actor, then a fellow student at Shchepkin Actors' Art College. They married in 1967 (half a year after their son Stepan was born) to become "the Soviet cinema's most beautiful couple". Three years later they divorced. Later Vertinskaya was romantically linked with actor Mikhail Kozakov, then had three years-long relations with Alexander Gradsky
, a Russian rock singer-songwriter
; contrary to a popular belief they weren't officially married.
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, USSR), a Soviet and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n actress whose mass popularity and high critical acclaim made her one of the most distinguished figures in the history of the 20th century Soviet cinema. In the 1990s, disillusioned with the state of cinema at home, she went to teach her art abroad and spent 12 years in France, England, USA and Switzerland. In 1988 Vertinskaya was designated People's Artist of Russia
People's Artist of Russia
People's Artist of Russia, also sometimes translated as National Artist of Russia, is an honorary title granted to citizens of Russia.It succeeded both the all-Soviet union award People's Artist of the USSR , and more directly the local republic award, People's Artist of the RSFSR , after the...
; she is also an Order of Honour laureate (2005).
Biography
Anastasiya Vertinskaya was born on December 19 in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
soon after her father, the famous singer-songwriter Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing.-Early years:...
returned from Harbin
Harbin
Harbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
in 1943 with his Georgian wife Lydia Vertinskaya (née Tzyrgvava) , a painter and an actress. Anastasiya and sister Marianna (one year her senior) spent first years of their lives in Moscow Metropol hotel; it was only in 1946 that the family's been granted a proper flat on Gorky St., 14.
Their childhood was quite happy: Anastasiya (according to IMDb biography) "was brought up in a multi-lingual family where she enjoyed an intellectually stimulating environment and a highly cultural atmosphere of her parents circle". Both sisters attended an ordinary school; music and foreign languages having been regarded as their educational program’s priorities by parents.
Vertinsky never scolded daughters for any of their failures, of which there were many since - as Anastasiya later remembered - she’s always been much more concerned with exploring her dad’s astonishing library than any of the school studies. In fact, Alexander (as Anastasiya later remembered) developed his own, highly stylised way of dealing with his daughters’ problems. "He used to say: 'I suffer greatly from the knowledge of your, girls, misbehaviour'. And I tried all my best to somehow harness this really nasty temper of mine - if only to relieve him from those great sufferings", she remembered in her 2008 interview.
Career
Anastasiya used to somehow link her future life with linguistics, but things changed overnight in 1961 when the then sixteen-year-old was approached personally by the film director Aleksandr PtushkoAleksandr Ptushko
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko is a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR. Ptushko is frequently referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis...
for the role of Assol in Scarlet Sails
Scarlet Sails (film)
Scarlet Sails is a 1961 Soviet film produced by Mosfilm and directed by Alexandr Ptushko. It is based on Alexander Grin's 1923 adventure novel of the same name and stars Vasily Lanovoy and Anastasiya Vertinskaya. The story is a romantic fantasy and is described as a "fairy tale", though it...
. The romantic teenage drama based on Alexander Grin
Alexander Grin
Alexander Grin was a Russian writer, notable for his romantic novels and short stories, mostly set in an unnamed fantasy land with a European or Latin American flavor...
’s novel became an instant success, making Anastasiya a national celebrity. Many of the future stars of Soviet cinema, including Vasily Lanovoy
Vasily Lanovoy
Vasily Semyonovich Lanovoy is a Soviet and Russian actor who works in the Vakhtangov Theatre, Moscow. He is also known as the President of Artek Festival of Films for Children...
, Ivan Pereverzev
Ivan Pereverzev
Ivan Pereverzev was a Soviet actor. He appeared in 47 films between 1940 and 1977.-Selected filmography:* It Happened in the Donbass * The Third Blow * Dream of a Cossack...
, Sergey Martinson
Sergey Martinson
Sergey Alexandrovich Martinson was a Russian eccentric comic actor, the master of pantomime, buffoonery and grotesque. He became People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1964....
, and Oleg Anofriev, were in the cast, but, as critics noted, it was Vertinskaya's passionate performance that has given Scarlet Sails its timeless flavour. 23 million people viewed during its first year.
In 1962 Vertinskaya starred in Amphibian Man
Amphibian Man
Amphibian Man is perhaps the best-known novel by Alexander Beliaev, a Soviet Russian science fiction writer. It was published in 1928.The book tells a story of a young man named Ichtiandr who as a child received a life-saving transplant - a set of shark gills...
, Gennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev's adaptation of Alexander Belyayev's book of the same title. Cast as Guttieres, a young woman in love with an amphibian man, Vertinskaya had to go through difficult late Autumn underwater shooting sessions and performed all by herself, without any stuntwomen. The film became the Soviet 1962 box-office blockbuster. "Vertinskaya was now a brand. People were going to the cinema to watch her, specifically," future husband Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess...
later recalled. All this changed the teenage actress's life dramatically, not necessarily for the better. She later remembered:
In 1962 the actress joined the Moscow Pushkin Theater troupe. This meant that from then on she had to continuously tour the country with the then popular so-called "theater brigades". In 1963 Anastasiya Vertinskaya joined (not without a hitch, but with the help of Lyudmila Maksakova
Lyudmila Maksakova
Lyudmila Maksakova is a Soviet theater and film actress. Maksakova, who appeared in 24 films between 1965 and 1998, was assignated People's Artist of Russia ; she is a laureate of the USSR State Prize and the prestigious Stanislavsky Prize . She is the daugter of a renown Soviet mezzo-soprano...
, her elder sister Marianna’s friend) the Shchukin Theatrical School. The young actress's eagerness to act was, in her own words, "next to maniacal". Nikita Mikhalkov was one of her fellow students. They fell in love and married in 1966, only to be divorced three years later.
The role of Ophelia in the 1964 Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Mikhaylovich Kozintsev was a Jewish Ukrainian, Soviet Russian theatre and film director. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1964.He studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts...
film Hamlet
Hamlet (1964 film)
Hamlet is a 1964 film adaptation in Russian of William Shakespeare's play of the same title, based on a translation by Boris Pasternak. It was directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro, and stars Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Prince Hamlet.-Background:...
(starring Innokentiy Smoktunovsky) made Vertinskaya known internationally and proved to be a turning point in her career. The 20-year-old (still acting very much "on an unconscious level", as she later admitted) won universal appraisal for her performance. As Kozintsev later wrote, Vertinskaya’s strength was her "real 18 years", her "fragile purity and this whole Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
look of hers". It was this experience that became Anastasiya Vertinskaya's creative milestone, something she had to continuously look up to and prove herself against. Working next to masters like Smoktunovsky proved to be invaluable in terms of learning, having introduced the young actress to many of what she called "this magic kitchen's secrets". "Ophelia made me realize for the first time ever that acting was indeed my destiny", she later said.
While still at the Shchukin Theatrical School, Anastasiya Vertinskaya played the role of petite Princess Bolkonsky in Sergey Bondarchuk's epic adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace
War and Peace (1968 film)
War and Peace is a Soviet-produced film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film, co-wrote the screenplay and also acted in the lead role of Pierre. It was produced over a seven year period and released in four parts between 1965 and...
(1968). It was her highly sensual, touchingly naive portrayal that gave this character a new, humane dimension, which was in fact the director's idea.
Vertinskaya said it was War and Peace that taught her how to "create a deep tragic undercurrent in something that on the face of it bears no sign of tragedy whatsoever".
Less famous but still held in high esteem was her Kittie Scerbatzkaya in director Aleksandr Zarkhi
Aleksandr Zarkhi
Aleksandr Grigoryevich Zarkhi was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and playwright. Aleksandr Zarkhi was granted the honorary title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1969 and received Stalin Prize in 1946...
’s 1968 adaptation of Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...
. Vertinskaya also starred in several other films in the late 1960s including Hold Your Head Up! (Не горюй!, Georgy Daneliya), The Polynyn's Case (Случай с Полуниным, Konstantin Simonov
Konstantin Simonov
Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov was a Russian/Soviet author, known especially as a war poet.-Early years:He was born in Petrograd. His mother was born Princess Obolenskaya, of a Rurikid family. His father, an officer in the Tsar's army, left Russia after the Revolution in 1917. He died in Poland...
’s book adaptation, and The Preliminary Man (Преждевременный человек), A. Room's adaptation of Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
эs unfinished novel Yakov Bogomolov.
Vertinskaya in theatre
In 1967, after having graduated from the cinema arts college, Vertinskaya joined the Vakhtangov Theater troupe and then, having spent just one season there, in 1968 the Sovremennik TheatreSovremennik Theatre
Moscow Sovremennik Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow founded in 1956. "Sovremennik" means "Contemporary".-History:Sovremennik Theatre was founded by a group of young Soviet actors during Khrushchev Thaw...
, where she stayed until 1980. The theatrical experience was, admittedly, of the utmost importance to the actress who never felt confident enough while acting in movies. "I was a slow developer", she confessed years later. In Sovremennik she starred as Olivia (Twelfth Night), Ranevskaya (The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
) and Valentina (Mikhail Roshchin
Mikhail Roshchin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Roshchin was a Russian playwright, screenwriter and short story writer.-Biography:Born to Mikhail N. Gibelman and Claudia Tarasovna Efimov-Tyurkin , Roshchin spent his early childhood in Sevastopol...
’s Valentin Y Valentina).
In 1980 Vertinskaya left Sovremennik for the Moscow Art Theater. "It was only here that I acquired the adequate level of professionalism I was craving", she said in an interview years later. At MAT Vertinskaya made her own two roles of Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
’s repertoire, traditionally regarded as difficult: Nina Zaretchaya (Seagull) and Yelena Andreevna (Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
). Critics praised Vertinskaya's performances - "charged emotionally, yet perfectly well controlled". Another stage triumph for Vertinskaya was Elmire in Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
directed by Anatoly Efros
Anatoly Efros
-Children's Theatre and the Lenkom:Efros was born in Kharkov. In 1954, he was appointed to run the Central Theatre for Children in Moscow and managed to transform it from a conservative backwater into one of the most fashionable Soviet theatres....
. Highly praised were Vertinskaya's Liza Protasova (Tolstoy's Living Corpse), Natasha (Alone with Everybody, Alexandr Gelman), Pat (Mother-of-Pearl Zinaida, Mikhail Roshchin). In 1989 Vertinskaya portrayed her own father in Mirage or Russian Pierrot’s way, a show that she herself wrote and directed to mark the centennial birthday anniversary of Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing.-Early years:...
.
Vertinskaya excelled in her Shakespearean roles. First, in a unique theatrical experiment staged by director Anatoly Efros at Taganka
Taganka
Tagansky District is a district of Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow, Russia, located between the Moskva River and the Yauza River near the mouth of the latter. Population:...
, she appeared in two roles: Prospero and Ariel in the Shakespeare's The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
(premiered at the Moscow Pushkin Museum
Pushkin Museum
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....
). Her Olivia in Peter James's Sheffield Theatre production of Twelfth Night (1975), better known to Russian audiences for the televised version of it, which premiered in 1978, is still regarded by many as unique and groundbreaking. The role in which Vertinskaya for the first time ever was allowed to demonstrate her comedic talent remains one of her personal favourites. The actress (according to the magazine 7 Days) portrayed her heroine "not as a sultry beauty but as Grace, infinitely charming and funny, full of boredom-related whims and flashes of sincerity, the product of her lively, inquisitive mind". Among the grand men of Soviet theatre who praised Vertinskaya’s unusual versatility was Anatoly Efros who once said the actress was "so physically natural and yet artistically graceful" that it was "almost unbelievable".
1970s — 1980s: Vertinskaya in film
Having gained mass appeal and critics’ respect did not necessarily mean that Vertinskaya would always have a lot of work. She remembered how in Sovremennik (instantly after Ophelia made her known internationally) she was shifted back to the mass scenes. Yevgeny Yevstigneev used to complain bitterly for - the moment he (as the King in The Naked King) was stepping up the stage - how the audience responded in a hushed collective whisper: "Look over there, it’s Vertinskaya in the crowd!".Occasionally, Vertinskaya remembered, she had to artificially "simplify" her facial features (even to stuff her nostrils with - well, stuff) so as to fit into some kind of Soviet "common heroine" stereotype. Even then, as one paper noted, "directors never knew what to do with this totally uncommon girl". "In those times, they demanded different kind of heroines — ruddy-faced cheerful activistkas", - the actress responded when asked about huge gaps in her working schedule in the early 1970s.
Vertinskaya’s next big hit came in 1978 when the film Nameless Star (an adaptation of Mihail Sebastian
Mihail Sebastian
-Life:Sebastian was born to a Jewish family in Brăila. After finishing his secondary studies, Sebastian went on to study law in Bucharest, but was soon attracted to the literary life and the exciting ideas of the new generation of Romanian intellectuals, as epitomized by the literary group...
's play) was premiered on Soviet TV. The film's director (and also a well-known actor) Mikhail Kozakov
Mikhail Kozakov
Mikhail Mikhailovich Kozakov was a Russian-Israeli film and theatre director and actor.- References :...
gave Vertinskaya (with whom he was having a passionate love affair at the time) total freedom of improvisation, letting the two - Mona the character and Anastasiya the performer - almost merge. The film (where her partner was the popular actor Igor Kostolevsky
Igor Kostolevsky
Igor Matveyevich Kostolevsky is a prominent Russian movie and stage actor. He has won the People's Artist of Russia title which is the highest honor for any actor/actress in the USSR and then the Russian Federation...
) was one the actress spoke of as one of her best-loved of all time. The film was not TV officials’ favourite, though.
Her next two films were The Gadfly
The Gadfly
The Gadfly is a novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich, published in 1897 , set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings. The story centers on the life of the protagonist, Arthur Burton, as a member of the Youth movement, and his antagonist, Padre Montanelli...
(1980), based on Ethel Lilian Voynich
Ethel Lilian Voynich
Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole was a British novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. She was born in Cork. Her father was the mathematician George Boole. Her mother was feminist philosopher Mary Everest, niece of George Everest and an author for the...
's novel, where she played Jemma (her male counterpart being a then debutant, Andrey Kharitonov, who later staged her as a film director) and The Theft, based on a Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
play, starring Innokenty Smoktunovsky
Innokenty Smoktunovsky
Innokentiy Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky was a Soviet actor acclaimed as the "king of Soviet actors". He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1974 and the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1990....
.
As time went by, Vertinskaya was changing, feeling more and more dissatisfied with what was going on around her - on stage and beyond. Two decades later one critic called her a "symbol of the decades": "In the 60’s she was a Dream-girl, in the 70's - a Style emblem, in the 80's - a movie idol". But the general feeling of total frustration touched her also. Her later work, including Margarita in The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a...
(directed by Yuri Kara
Yuri Kara
Yuri Viktorovich Kara , born on 12 November 1954 in Stalino, is a Russian film director, screenwriter and producer.-Biography:Yuri Kara was born on 12 November 1954 in the Ukrainian city of Stalino, which is now called Donetsk....
and never officially released, 1994), another of her personal favourites, was being made against the background of general decline — in national cinema and culture in general.
Retirement
When in 1989 an invitation came from Oxford for her and Alexander KalyaginAlexander Kalyagin
Alexander Kalyagin is a Soviet/Russian actor and director, member of the Public Chamber of Russia, People's Artist of Russia , Laureate of the State Prizes for his works in the theatre and the cinema...
, another well-known Russian actor, to give master classes of theatrical craftsmanship, she accepted it without a second thought. The next 12 years Vertinskaya spent teaching in England, France and Switzerland. Vertinskaya’s life having changed drastically, she later said she would have never come to regret her decision to quit the stage. "I realized one had to reinvent oneself literally seven times during one's lifetime, otherwise one won’t be able to fully realize oneself. Why should one sit and moan about how one’s never got good roles? You have to always turn your back to the scene that does not suit you", she said in a recent interview. Vertinkaya also spoke of how relieved she felt for having dropped this 'everlasting worry' about being screened or staged - continuously. "This eternal actor’s anxiety, it had finally left me", she confessed, speaking to TV Kultura correspondent.
Later Vertinskaya taught drama in Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
(Théâtre de la Républic) and at Chekhov's school and in Switzerland’s School of European Cinema. Her play Chekhov, Act III, compiled of Third acts of Russian playwright’s three classic plays ran successfully in Nanterre des Amandiers. She spoke most warmly of her European students’ immense passion for Arts and determination - two qualities she said she seldom met in Russia.
In 2000 Vertinskaya returned home. Later she spoke of how she suffered almost physically of homesickness while abroad. Since then she performed on stage only once: it was the 2002 play Imago after M. Kurotchkin’s interpretation of Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
’s Pygmalion directed by Nina Tchusova. In 2009 Izvestiya intervew Vertinskaya spoke of the lack of interesting roles in the Russian theater and said she’d rather stay away from the stage at all rather than start playing ‘hitman’s mums’ (one such suggestion she did indeed received not long ago). "I’ve got no future plans connected with stage, but I see no personal drama in it. What worries me more, is that such actresses as Marina Neyolova or Lena Koreneva are out of work", she said.
Vertinskaya's major concern these days is the functioning of the Russian Actors Foundation charity she herself created in 1991. She’s also busy restoring and producing her father’s records (three of them have been released recently in France). In 2010 Vertinskaya is going to publish a book of Vertinsky’s poetry - something she’s been working on for five years. She’s also engaged in her son Stepan Mikhalkov’s restaurant business in Moscow, her passion for culinary art being well known.
Critical reception
Part of Vertinskaya’s appeal has always been her unconventional good looks, the actress having been described variously as 'the Soviet Vivien LeighVivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
' and 'anti-Soviet-looking Soviet beauty'. Anastasiya Vertinskaya's sensational 1961 debut left both cinema fans and critics equally enchanted, the latter being exceptionally lenient to the fifteen-year-old, hailed as the future star of the Soviet cinema. "No other
Andrei Plakhov
Andrei Stepanovich Plakhov is a Russian film critic and historian of cinema, columnist for Kommersant newspaper. President of the International Federation of Film Critics....
recalled years later.
Ophelia in Grigory Kozintsev's Hamlet
Hamlet (1964 film)
Hamlet is a 1964 film adaptation in Russian of William Shakespeare's play of the same title, based on a translation by Boris Pasternak. It was directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro, and stars Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Prince Hamlet.-Background:...
marked an important change in Vertinskaya's career and made critics scrutinize her phenomenon closely. Most agreed that what the director cunningly managed to do was turn the young drama student’s obvious lack of self-confidence into a strong artistic statement. As for assessing the overall result, specialists were divided. According to L. Nekhoroshev, "cast into the iron scheme of the director’s idea, like it was an iron corset of her Elizabethan dress, young actress failed to breathe freely in the air of high art she'd been submerged in". He had to agree, though, that "in this rather mechanical Ophelia some inner logic and harmony were quite alive". Conversely, critic E. Dobin regarded the young actress' work as high artistic achievement. "Fresh ingénue's natural helplessness was used by the director to become a distinctive feature of Ophelia's meek, vulnerable character… There was not a single dim or erratic note in young Vertinskaya's performance. Ophelia's image is crystal clear, as indeed is the actress' work, its deep transparency reminding that of a river the bottom of which this heroine is destined for", he wrote. In retrospect, this latter attitude prevailed. "
Praised initially for her teenage charms, Vertinskaya quickly evolved into a diverse, versatile and highly original actress, garnering praise from all quarters, home and abroad. Vertinskaya's next, equally miniature, but for the same very reason highly significant role, that of Princess Bolkonskaya in Sergey Bondarchuk's War and Peace
War and Peace (1968 film)
War and Peace is a Soviet-produced film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film, co-wrote the screenplay and also acted in the lead role of Pierre. It was produced over a seven year period and released in four parts between 1965 and...
epic garnered even more accolades. Critics noted a rare virtuosity with which "such a tragically fleeting, intrinsically unfulfilled character
Impressive was Vertinskaya's progress in theater. Her work in Sovremennik
Sovremennik
Sovremennik was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in St. Petersburg in 1836-1866. It came out four times a year in 1836-1843 and once a month after that...
(The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
, Valentin and Valentina) made critics speak of "...this special gracefulness of the stage existence where outward technical virtuosity of every movement and the sense of deep psychological insight were perfectly combined". Critically lauded were her Russian literature classic heroines - Nina in The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
, Elena in Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
. Exceedingly well-received was Vertinskaya’s Elmyra in Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
. There, according to the Soviet Theater magazine, she elevated her heroine "onto on an enormous aesthetic pedestal, presenting her as a kind of noblewoman of old French canvasses, inapproachable in her beauty and grace...". The same critic spoke of the combination of technical virtuosity and "craving for artistic perfection", of her unique ability to create "beauty devoid of frustration; gracefulness without flaw, based on emotional fullness and self-enjoyment". To Shakespeare's The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
(produced by Anatoly Efros
Anatoly Efros
-Children's Theatre and the Lenkom:Efros was born in Kharkov. In 1954, he was appointed to run the Central Theatre for Children in Moscow and managed to transform it from a conservative backwater into one of the most fashionable Soviet theatres....
at Taganka
Taganka
Tagansky District is a district of Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow, Russia, located between the Moskva River and the Yauza River near the mouth of the latter. Population:...
) the actress (according to a critic) gave a "seal of beauty", having achieved in her performance "the harmony of gesture, sound and movement". All in all, critics agreed that the progress Vertinskaya made during her 20 years of stage work, "from charmful but one-dimensional Assol-Ophelia" to the versatile multi-faceted master of many genres was enormous. Unwilling to join the Soviet cinema mainstream, she continued to be slightly enigmatic, out of spotlight persona, which only added to her charisma.
One of Vertinskaya's 1970s creative high points was Countess Olyvia in Peter Brook-led Sovremennik production of The Twelfth Night. Buoyed by the English director's totally democratic, improvisational approach and the star-studded cast' energetics, Vertinskaya demonstrated the comedy actress potential (totally ignored by theater and film directors before). Konstantin Raikin
Konstantin Raikin
Konstantin Arkadyevich Raikin is a Russian film and theater actor, director of the Moscow Satyricon theater...
, though, thought Vertinskaya's Olyvia success was natural for what she played was actually her own self. "She is a very funny, ironic and naughty person, for once her own character fitted into a role perfectly", he said. Some critics expressed regret this comic side of hers had been ignore before. Totally natural and organic was Vertinskaya's Mona in Mikhail Kozakov's Nameless Star. The film itself had problems with the Soviet censorship but now is rated #64 in the Roskino's list of The Best Russian Films of All Time It was then that Efros spoke of Vertinskaya as being "so physically natural and at the same time so full of artistic grace that the combination seems unbelievable". Marveling at her ability to "harmonize gesture sound and motion" was (otherwise rather acerbic) actor Valentin Gaft
Valentin Gaft
Valentin Yosifovich Gaft is a Russian and Soviet actor, People's Artist of Russia .-Biography:Valentin Gaft was born in Moscow to a family of a lawyer Iosif Romanovich Gaft and Gita Davydovna Gaft . The family moved to Moscow from Poltava, Ukraine...
. Having maintained her reputation of the nation's "most secretive movie treasure", Vertinskaya through the years managed to avoid journalists and TV cameras, making her private life the subject of rumours and insinuations.
The Master and Margarita (1994) brought another part of the actress' credo forward that's been unknown before. According to V.Plotnikov, Vertinskaya (before this) "was victim to her origins: everybody saw in her a little Countess or a little Princess, while she herself often referred to herself as a natural witch...
Recognition
In 1981, Anastasiya Vertinskaya was designated a People's Artist of the RSFSR. In 2005 she was bestowed with the Order of Honour and she has also received the Order of FriendshipOrder of Friendship
The Order of Friendship is a state decoration of Russia established by decree # 442 of March 2, 1994 of the President of the Russian Federation....
. On December 19 on her 65th birthday both President Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
and Premier Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
sent her personal telegrams, speaking of "bright individuality", never waning popularity and "unique roles, extraordinarily powerful and deep".
Family and private life
Anastasiya Vertinskaya's husband was Nikita MikhalkovNikita Mikhalkov
Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union.Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess...
, now a renowned Russian film director and actor, then a fellow student at Shchepkin Actors' Art College. They married in 1967 (half a year after their son Stepan was born) to become "the Soviet cinema's most beautiful couple". Three years later they divorced. Later Vertinskaya was romantically linked with actor Mikhail Kozakov, then had three years-long relations with Alexander Gradsky
Alexander Gradsky
Alexander Borisovich Gradsky is a Russian rock singer, bard, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He was one of the earliest performers of rock music in Russia. His diverse repertoire includes rock 'n' roll, traditional folk songs performed with a rock twist, and operatic arias...
, a Russian rock singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
; contrary to a popular belief they weren't officially married.
Select filmography
- Scarlet SailsScarlet Sails (film)Scarlet Sails is a 1961 Soviet film produced by Mosfilm and directed by Alexandr Ptushko. It is based on Alexander Grin's 1923 adventure novel of the same name and stars Vasily Lanovoy and Anastasiya Vertinskaya. The story is a romantic fantasy and is described as a "fairy tale", though it...
(Алые паруса, 1961) - Assol (leading role) - Amphibian ManAmphibian Man (film)Amphibian Man is a 1962 Soviet science fiction romance film starring Vladimir Korenev and Directed by Vladimir Chebotaryov and Gennadi Kazansky....
(Человек-амфибия, 1962) - Guttieres - HamletHamlet (1964 film)Hamlet is a 1964 film adaptation in Russian of William Shakespeare's play of the same title, based on a translation by Boris Pasternak. It was directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro, and stars Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Prince Hamlet.-Background:...
(Гамлет, 1964) - Ophelia - War and PeaceWar and Peace (1968 film)War and Peace is a Soviet-produced film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. Sergei Bondarchuk directed the film, co-wrote the screenplay and also acted in the lead role of Pierre. It was produced over a seven year period and released in four parts between 1965 and...
(Война и мир, 1968) - Princess Bolkonskaya - Anna KareninaAnna Karenina (1967 film)Anna Karenina is a 1967 Soviet drama film directed by Aleksandr Zarkhi, based on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France....
, (Анна Каренина, 1968) - Kittie Scherbatskaya - Hold Your Head Up! (Не горюй!, 1969) - Princess Mary Tzintsadze
- Enamoureds (Влюбленные, 1969) - Tanya
- Case of Polynin (Случай с Полыниным, 1970) - actress Galina Prokofyeva (leading role)
- A Shadow (Тень, 1972) - Princess Louise
- The Preliminary Man (Преждевременный человек, 1972) - Olga Borisovna (leading role)
- One At One's Own Place (Человек на своем месте, 1972) - Clara, architect
- Domby and Son (Домби и сын, 1974 TV play) - Edyth Granger
- Nameless Star (Безымянная звезда, 1978) - Mona (leading role)
- The Twelfth Night (Двенадцатая ночь, 1979 TV play) - Olyvia
- The Gadfly (Овод, 1980) - Gemma
- Theft (Кража, 1982) - Margaret Chalmers
- Days and Years of Nikolai Batygin (Дни и годы Николая Батыгина, 1987) - Liza Paltseva
- The Lives of Don Quixotes and Sancho (Житие Дон Кихота и Санчо, 1988) - Duchess
- New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's CourtNew Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's CourtNew Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Fantasy over Mark Twain's theme is a 1988 Soviet adventure film directed by Viktor Hres and based on American author Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court...
(Новые приключения янки при дворе короля Артура, 1988) - Queen Morgana - The Tempest (Буря, 1988 TV play) - Prospero/Ariel
- How Dark the Nights Are on the Black SeaHow Dark the Nights Are on the Black SeaHow Dark the Nights Are on the Black Sea is a 1989 Soviet comedy film directed by Vasili Pichul. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Aleksei Zharkov* Natalya Negoda* Aleksandr Mironov...
(В городе Сочи темные ночи, 1989) - Dunya - Tartuffe (Тартюф, TV play, 1989) - Elmyra
- Thirst of Passion (Жажда страсти, 1991) - (anonymous, leading role)
- Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита, 1994) - Margarita (leading role)
- Town Musicians of Bremen (Бременские музыканты, 2000) - AtamanAtamanAtaman was a commander title of the Ukrainian People's Army, Cossack, and haidamak leaders, who were in essence the Cossacks...
sha - Casus Belli (Казус Белли, 2002)