From "French Lessons" to Aunt Asya: How the role in the commercial broke Tatyana Tashkova's acting destiny

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This actress has played more than 40 movie roles, but most viewers associate only one image with the main character from the bleach ad, when she appeared the phrase "Aunt Asya has arrived!" This commercial from the 1990s. so often repeated on different TV channels that everyone forgot about all the previous works in the cinema of Tatiana Tashkova, even about her most striking role in the film "French Lessons". For what reason the actress considered this film a landmark not only in her professional life, but also in her personal life, and why the directors stopped offering her new roles - further in the review.

Tatyana Vasilyeva's parents had nothing to do with the world of cinema - her father worked at a factory, mother - in a store, but she herself dreamed of becoming an actress from childhood. In high school, Tatyana studied in the drama club, and after school she entered the Shchukin Theater School from the first time. While still a student, she married the future diplomat, MGIMO student Alexei Shurshikov. After graduation, he was offered a job that involved a long business trip to the United States. In the 1970s. the opportunity to go abroad for a long time seemed to most an absolutely incredible happy occasion, but Tatyana herself refused the chance presented to her.

Tatyana understood: in the United States, she will not be able to do what she loves, and after a long absence and at home, she will probably have to say goodbye to the acting profession. Even for the sake of her husband, whom she loved very much, Tatiana was not ready to give up her dream. And she made a decision, which none of her relatives understood then - to part with her husband. The divorce threatened his diplomatic career, and the parents of both spouses condemned her for this step, but she did not back down from her choice. After that, her mother and father did not speak to her for a whole year.

She kept her husband's surname, and in her first films she appeared in the credits as Tatyana Shurshikova. She began acting in films at the age of 19, while still studying at the theater, and at the age of 22 she played a role that became her trademark - teacher Lidia Mikhailovna in the film based on the story of Valentin Rasputin "French Lessons". Although her samples were not the best among all the contenders for the main role in this film, the director insisted that Shurshikova be approved.

Only after a while Tatiana found out that the famous director Yevgeny Tashkov, known for the films Come Tomorrow, Major Whirlwind and Adjutant of His Excellency, fell in love with the young actress at first sight, as soon as he saw her on the set. She did not know about it - on the set they were connected exclusively by professional relations. Only a year after the release of the film on the screens, Tashkov began to look after her. He was 30 years older, Tatyana had a young man at that time, but this did not stop the director.

For a long time Tatyana did not react to his signs of attention, and when he proposed to her for the first time, she refused. But Tashkov persisted, and a year later the actress agreed to become his wife. He was the same age as her father, and she was the same age as Tashkov's son from his first marriage, but, as it turned out, even such a big age difference is not an obstacle to real feelings. They could talk for hours, understood each other perfectly. Their family happiness was overshadowed by only one tragedy - they lost their first child due to medical error. But this misfortune only rallied the spouses, who were able to become a real support for each other in all life trials. When the couple had a son, Alexei, they got married.

Until the end of the 1980s. Tatyana Tashkova continued to act a lot, played several main roles, but in the 1990s she, like many actors, was left without work. Her husband was retired at the age of 60, having declared at the film studio that they no longer need such directors. And then Tatyana had to become the main earner in the family. For some time she worked as a cook, then graduated from an art school for leather processing and made bracelets and wallets, took knitting and embroidery courses, then mastered working with securities at an international banking school and got a job at a bank as the chief administrator of the central depository.

Due to overwork and stress, Tatyana Tashkova began to have health problems, she was threatened with blindness, she underwent more than 10 eye surgeries in a year. She had already lost hope of returning to the acting profession, but then she was offered to shoot in advertising. Unexpectedly for herself, she passed the casting of an international company and received a contract for a series of commercials. Later, the contract was renewed, and Tashkova for several years was the official advertising face of this company - her aunt Asya was known in every home.

In those years, the recognition and popularity of the actress surpassed her success in the cinema of the 1970-1980s, but this fame also had a downside. The directors were in no hurry to offer her roles in films, fearing that all her heroines would inevitably cause unnecessary associations with the very same Aunt Asya from the bleach advertisement. Nevertheless, the actress did not regret this experience. She confessed: "".

Since then, she no longer received the main roles, being content only with episodes and supporting roles in films and TV series of the 2000s. Nevertheless, she managed to return to her beloved profession - she played in an entreprise, dubbed, dubbed cartoons, became a theater teacher.

In 2007, the actress lost two close people at once - first, her sister passed away, and after her, her mother. 5 years later, at the age of 85, Tatyana's husband died. Before he left, he managed to release his last film, Three Women of Dostoevsky, in which his two sons and his wife starred. The actress admits that after 8 years she could not come to terms with the loss of her beloved spouse.

The fate of Evgeny Tashkov's first wife was merciless to her: The tragic story of Frosya Burlakova.