Why Dunyasha from "Quiet Don" was grateful to the actress who stole her husband from her: Natalia Arkhangelskaya

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

Natalia Arkhangelskaya always considered herself a theater actress, but the audience remembered her for the role of Dunyasha Melekhova in the film "Quiet Flows the Don" by Sergei Gerasimov. The actress had many fans, but her personal life was full of passion. She was married three times, and her second husband, Vladimir Andreev, was taken away from the family by actress Natalya Selezneva, for which Natalya Arkhangelskaya not only does not take offense at her colleague, but is even grateful to her.

The real Dunyasha

Natalya Stepanova (the real name of the actress) played her starring role in the cinema, barely graduating from school. The girl entered VGIK and saw in the hall of the institute an advertisement for the recruitment of actors for filming in the film by Sergei Gerasimov based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. Without a shadow of a doubt, the applicant rushed into the indicated audience, not really counting on anything.

As soon as she opened the door, Tamara Makarova, seeing the girl, said to Sergei Gerasimov: "Look, Dunyasha has come!" So Natalia Arkhangelskaya got her first film role. And for three years she combined her studies at GITIS (she preferred this institute to VGIK) with filming in "Quiet Don". There, on the set, Yakov Segel, director and student of Sergei Gerasimov, drew attention to her.

By that time, Natalia Arkhangelskaya had already managed to survive an affair with Boris Andronikashvili. They met for several years, but Andronikashvili's desire to introduce the bride to her mother upset the relationship of the young people. Boris's mother, actress Kira Andronikashvili, did not approve of her son's choice, she wanted to see his Georgian wife next to him. As a result, the young people broke up, and Lyudmila Gurchenko became the first wife of Boris.

Yakov Segel was 14 years older than the actress, he persistently courted the girl, and she even accepted his attentions, although he seemed to Natalya Arkhangelskaya too mature. But the director began to show sympathy for Natalia in front of the film crew of The Quiet Don, and colleagues insistently advised the actress not to miss her chance. Yes, and mother approved the candidacy of the future son-in-law, although she warned Segel that Natasha is still a real child.

Natalia really had no idea what her family life would be like. And her first marriage was far from ideal. Subsequently, the actress described him as sheer torture. Yakov Segel from the very first days began to show dissatisfaction. He found fault with everything that his young wife did, and even desperately jealous.

He monitored her telephone conversations and found out with whom Natalya was talking at the institute. And at some point, Natalya Arkhangelskaya could not stand it: she packed her suitcase and left.

On the waves of love

The fact is that on the eve of the next scandal, the girl at the institute met Sasha Fadeev, the son of the actress Angelina Stepanova and the stepson of the famous writer Alexander Fadeev. For the girl, it was true love at first sight.

True, nothing good came out of her feelings. Natalia Arkhangelskaya absolutely could not hide her feelings and the whole institute knew about them, including her lover. Sasha Fadeev has always enjoyed increased attention from the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity and for a long time did not even notice his ardent admirer.

And even when a relationship arose between them, he simply allowed himself to be loved. Natalya Arkhangelskaya suffered, was desperately jealous and literally tormented herself. She forgave him for inattention to herself, justified refusals to meet and constantly waited. But one day Fadeev announced that they were breaking up and left. And she healed her wounds for a long time. Alexander Fadeev subsequently became the third husband of Lyudmila Gurchenko.

For a long time, the actress brought herself back to normal, and then Vladimir Andreev appeared in her life. They met at a screen test at a time when Natalya Arkhangelskaya was about to leave Sovremennik, and a new acquaintance pleaded for her at the Yermolova Theater, where he served himself.

Andreev actively courted the actress, and she, exhausted by her relationship with Fadeev, responded to his attention to herself and even accepted the marriage proposal. True, for another seven years they lived without marriage registration. As Natalya Arkhangelskaya admits, there were no particularly fervent feelings between them, but after that they still formalized their relationship in the hope that everything would change.

Divorce for the good

But less than a month after the registration of the marriage, Vladimir Andreev met Natalia Selezneva. For both, it was love at first sight. Selezneva subsequently reproached herself for taking her husband away from the family, but at that time she was not at all tormented by remorse. When Natalya Arkhangelskaya found out about her husband's romance, she just asked if he loved the other Natasha? Hearing an affirmative answer, she herself invited him to divorce.

They parted quietly, subsequently communicated normally, only the new wife of Vladimir Andreev continued to torture herself for many more years. As a result, Natalia Arkhangelskaya, congratulating Selezneva on her anniversary, thanked her for that divorce. If it were not for him, she herself would never have married the French journalist Vlad Vishnevsky, with whom she lived thirty happy years.

They met at some kind of banquet and from the very first minutes of meeting they felt sympathy for each other. True, the journalist was married, but his marriage had long been only nominal. He served as a correspondent for France Presse, but refused to leave Russia for a more prosperous country so as not to lose his Natalia. The actress was well-treated not only by Vlad himself, but also by his ex-wife and children, who often came to Moscow to visit their father.

For the past ten years, the actress's husband suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and Natalia diligently looked after him. She did not complain or grumble about fate, she just tried to spend as much time with him as possible, taking care of him like a child.

When Vlad Vishnevsky died, Natalya Arkhangelskaya admitted: she loved only two men in her life, Sasha Fadeev and her third husband. But if she were married to Vladimir Andreev, she might never even meet the person next to whom she was so happy.

Vladimir Andreev in life was a very modest, and also an extremely honest person. He was handsome, smart, talented and very charming. Only now his personal happiness was formed only on the third attempt.