How was the fate of the star of the film "It Can't Be!" overseas: the American dream of Larisa Eremina

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

She was called an actress with a non-Soviet appearance and was compared with foreign stars - Gina Lollobrigida and Elizabeth Taylor. The audience remembered her in the images of a girl at a feast from the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes his Profession", the main character of the film "Kiss of Chanita", Sophie from the comedy "It Can't Be!" and Barbara from "Tavern on Pyatnitskaya". But in the late 1970s, at the peak of her popularity, Larisa Eremina suddenly disappeared from the screens. For a long time, nothing was known about her fate, and only years later she talked about how she tried to regain her place under the sun in the USA …

Larisa Eremina was born in 1950 in the Moldovan city of Tiraspol, later the family moved to Chisinau. As a child, she was very shy, and her parents sent her to a theater group, hoping that there the girl would be helped to gain self-confidence and become more open. Even then, Larisa realized that the stage is her vocation, and she wants to connect her life with the acting profession.

After graduating from school with a gold medal, Eremina went to the capital to enter a theater university. The competition for the Moscow Art Theater School was very large, the applicants were very strong, and the selection committee could not decide on the final choice for a long time. Instead of one third round, they arranged three, and at each stage they “weeded out” those in whom the teachers doubted. When it came to discussing the candidacy of Larisa Eremina, People's Artist of the USSR, Professor Pavel Massalsky, who was recruiting his course that year, said: “” No one dared to contradict the Master, and Eremin was enrolled.

After graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, Larisa Eremina became an actress of the Theater. V. Mayakovsky. Director Andrei Goncharov said about her: “” Her creative range was really very wide, she coped with diverse roles, and soon she began to receive offers from filmmakers. Goncharov did not want to hear about it. When Yevgeny Sherstobitov offered Eremina the main role in his film "Kiss of Chanita", Goncharov said: "" But the actress still made her choice not in favor of the theater.

At 23, Larisa Eremina made her film debut. Once Leonid Gaidai saw her on the stage and offered her the role of a girl from the retinue of Queen Marfa Vasilievna. This role was episodic, but debuting in such a film, even in a small role, was an undoubted success. The next role has already become the main one - the Spaniard Chan in the very film "Kiss of Chanita", because of which a scandal erupted in the theater. Eremina insisted on her own and still convinced Goncharov to let her go to the shooting. She was right - this work brought the young actress all-Union popularity.

The following year, Larisa Eremina played two more main roles in the films "Between Heaven and Earth" and "It Can't Be!" Leonid Gaidai this time entrusted her not an episodic, but a central role in the short story "A Funny Adventure" of the comedy "It Can't Be!". In the role of "the former ballerina from the noblewomen" Sofochka, Zinuli's friend, she was remembered by the majority of the audience.

In the next 2 years, Eremina starred in 5 more films. The most striking work of them was the role of the singer in the film "Tavern on Pyatnitskaya". Her film career developed so rapidly and successfully that everyone expected new roles from Eremina and called her one of the most beautiful and promising actresses. But suddenly, at the peak of popularity, having received 4 more offers from directors, Eremina suddenly disappeared from the screens.

Her sudden disappearance then gave rise to many rumors. Until recently, practically nothing was known about the further fate of the actress. They wrote that Eremina was forced to leave the USSR due to the fact that allegedly her first husband, a close friend of Galina Brezhneva, Boris Buryatse, was imprisoned. In fact, these rumors had nothing to do with reality. In 2011, Laris Eremina gave her first interview after leaving the USSR, in which she clarified the situation.

As it turned out, at the end of the 1970s. the actress met the violinist Gregory Wayne, married him and followed him to the USA in 1979. She herself explained the decision to emigrate as follows: "".

In the United States, the couple first settled in New York, where Eremina was offered to appear in commercials. However, her modeling career did not appeal to her - brought up on the best traditions of Russian art, she considered this work frivolous for an actress. Soon, she and her husband moved from New York to Los Angeles, where Eremina-Wayne managed to continue her acting career. There she starred in 11 films, and also performed on the theater stage, dubbed and was the presenter on a Russian-language TV channel for 20 years.

Since 1983, Larisa Eremina-Wayne taught at the University of Los Angeles and leading Hollywood acting schools, and then opened her own acting school. She told about the peculiarities of her work as a teacher: "".

Although her professional path in the United States has developed quite successfully, Larisa Eremina does not recommend those actors who have reached heights in their homeland to chase the American dream - only a few of all foreign actors manage to achieve noticeable success in Hollywood. And she considers her main achievement to be the birth of two children - Alan and Mary Ann. They were born in the USA, but were brought up in Russian culture, speak and write well in Russian. On the eve of her 70th birthday, the actress admits that she still misses her homeland very much, although over the years the United States has already become her second home.

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