How the closest person ruined the career of the "Eternal Call" star: Irina Bunina and Nikolai Gritsenko

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

Both of them were incredibly talented, successful, in demand, famous, both played the brightest roles in cinema: Irina Bunina - Lushka in Eternal Call and Katerina in Afrikanych, Nikolai Gritsenko - the wife of the main character in Anna Karenina and Nikolai Tatarinov in "Two Captains". But at the same time, both were equally unhappy. Their meeting could have been a guarantee of long years of joint happiness, but instead played a fatal role in the fate of the actress …

Irina was born in Magnitogorsk into an acting family - her father, Alexei Bunin, became a Stalin Prize laureate, and her mother, Claudia Bunina, was a famous theater actress, Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR. Their daughter grew up behind the scenes of the theater and since childhood she did not dream of anything else, except for the acting profession. Parents performed in provincial theaters and moved from one city to another, until they stopped in Kiev. After graduating from school, Irina Bunina went to Moscow and from the first time entered the Shchukin school for the course of Vladimir Etush.

Even in her student years, Irina Bunina began acting in films. She played her debut role in the film “Father's House” by the famous director Lev Kulidzhanov, and one of her first main roles was Marina Gritsyuk in the film “The Artist from Kokhanovka”. After graduation, the actress was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow Academic Theater. E. Vakhtangova, where she performed for 5 years.

Nikolay Gritsenko was one of the leading actors of this theater. He was 27 years older than Irina, and at that time he had been performing on the theater stage and acting in films for 20 years. Although his most striking roles were still ahead, the name of Nikolai Gritsenko was already well known to the general public - for his role in the film "Cavalier of the Golden Star" the actor was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree.

Despite the big difference in age, Nikolai Gritsenko from the very first days of his appearance in the theater of Irina Bunina began to show her attention. Caring and nurturing soon grew into a real obsession. For the sake of the actress, he left his family. The girl believed in the sincerity of his feelings and agreed to move in with him. But the joint happiness was not long - soon everything collapsed due to alcohol addiction, unreasonable jealousy and unfaithfulness of the actor. Irina was not ready to put up with this and left him. Nikolai Gritsenko was furious and made every effort to take revenge on her.

In the theater, Gritsenko enjoyed great prestige and influence, he was considered the right-hand man of the chief director, and he said that he would remain in the theater only if Bunina was fired. And the actress had to leave there. However, he did not stop there and did everything to prevent her from entering other theaters in the capital. Oleg Efremov was ready to accept her at the Moscow Art Theater, but set a condition: you need to wait at least a year for the scandal to subside. Then Irina decided to leave Moscow and returned to her parents in Kiev, although this was disastrous for her career.

In Kiev, Bunina became an actress at the National Russian Drama Theater. Lesia Ukrainka, on whose stage she performed for 40 years. The filmmakers did not forget about her, and after a 4-year hiatus, she began filming again. Of course, if she had stayed in Moscow, there would have been much more of these works, but nevertheless, in the 1970s. Irina Bunina played her most striking roles in the films "Afrikanych", "Every Evening After Work", "Eternal Call", "Family Circle" and others.

Having started anew her acting career in Kiev, Irina tried to establish her personal life. She married a colleague in the theater Les Serdyuk, the couple had a daughter. However, soon after her birth, their relationship soured - the actress still loved Nikolai Gritsenko, her husband began to drink heavily, and after the divorce, he no longer took part in raising his daughter.

Later, the daughter of Irina Bunina and Lesya Serdyuk, Anastasia, spoke about the first bitter experience of her mother's family life: "".

In the 1980s. Irina Bunina continued to act in films, and in the 1990s, due to the crisis in cinema, she disappeared from the screens for a long time. She returned in 1999, playing in the TV series "Birthday of the Bourgeois", and after that she often got roles in films and TV series. In 2004, the famous actor Malcolm McDowell saw her on the set and exclaimed: "" Irina Bunina was really not inferior to her Italian colleague in her extraordinary external data and eccentricity of acting talent, but their professional fates were incomparably different. In recent years, the actress was ill a lot, underwent several operations, which is why she had to leave the theater and from the set. Irina Bunina was engaged in raising the granddaughter of Claudia and rarely appeared in public. In 2017, the actress passed away on the eve of her 78th birthday.

Nikolai Gritsenko, after parting with Irina Bunina, married again, in the late 1960s - 1970s. stayed at the peak of popularity, having played his most striking roles in the films "Anna Karenina", "Adjutant of His Excellency", "Sannikov Land", "Two Captains".

But even then his illness made itself felt - the actor had multiple sclerosis, he forgot the text of the role, and besides, he began to show signs of mental disorder, and he spent his last days in a psychiatric hospital: Acting genius and the bitter fate of Gritsenko's sister and brother.