Natalya Selezneva - 75: The other side of the glory of the star of films about Shurik

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

June 19 marks the 75th anniversary of the famous theater and film actress, People's Artist of Russia Natalya Selezneva. She has long been accustomed to the fact that viewers call her Lida - Shurik's friend from the legendary films of Leonid Gaidai. This popularity has not made the actress happy for a long time, because she believes that fate punished her both for the all-Union glory and for someone else's stolen happiness …

Natalia Selezneva began her acting career at the age of 6 thanks to a fluke - a theater actor drew attention to her on the street and invited her parents to bring the girl to the audition. So she got her first role in the play. And in the cinema, the famous writer Agnia Barto became her godmother, who saw her in the theater and insisted that Natasha Selezneva play the main role in the film adaptation of her book Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character.

By the time she entered the Shchukin School, she had already played several roles in the cinema, but her early popularity did not bring her joy. Although the whole school knew the young star, she had nothing to be proud of - she studied very badly, which is why they were in no hurry to be accepted into the pioneers and the Komsomol. In addition, by the age of 14, the girl had grown to 175 cm and was head and shoulders above all her classmates. Now her external data would be called model parameters, but then they teased and came up with offensive nicknames. It got to the point that she told her mother: if she grows even one centimeter, she will commit suicide. A wise mother found a way out: she gave the girl to basketball, where high growth was an advantage, not a disadvantage.

Natalia Selezneva considers her film career to be quite successful, because she was lucky enough to work with famous directors Gleb Panfilov, Ilya Fraz, Leonid Gaidai. For the role of Lida in "Operation" Y "…" she was chosen from 300 applicants. True, her partner on the set, Alexander Demyanenko, who played Shurik, was a cut below her, but the director found a way out: when they were nearby in the frame, they dug a hole in the ground for Selezneva or substituted a chair under Demyanenko's feet.

Thanks to her roles in the "Zucchini" 13 Chairs ", in the films" Operation Y "and other adventures of Shurik" and "Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession" Natalia Selezneva was recognized by the whole country, the actress began to visit abroad, from where she brought gifts for all loved ones. However, this glory had a downside - the directors did not see her in other roles, the image of Shurik's girlfriend turned out to be too memorable and recognizable. She had to give up many roles herself because of her many years of employment in the filming of "Zucchini" 13 Chairs ". Many opportunities were missed, which the actress later regretted.

Once on the set, Natalya Selezneva met the actor Vladimir Andreev. Feelings immediately flared up between them, although just a month before that, the actor had married a girl whom he had been dating for 7 years. The actress said: "". Later Selezneva said that she later literally paid with her head for this stolen happiness.

For a long time, the actress was seriously ill and in the mid-1990s. underwent a complex five-hour operation on the thyroid gland. "", - Selezneva said. Due to the fact that the ligaments were affected during the operation, the actress lost her voice. She was already ready for the fact that she would have to say goodbye to her profession forever, but, fortunately, within a year she managed to restore her speech with the help of harmonica exercises, and Natalya Selezneva was able to return both to the stage and to the set.

In the most difficult periods of her life, she was saved by the fact that there was always a husband nearby, about whom she said: "". This year, the couple will celebrate the "golden" wedding - 50 years of family life.

In recent years, her health has failed again - due to several operations on her leg, she had to abandon roles in the theater and cinema. The rehabilitation period was very long, and for three years the actress could not cope with depression. Only recently did she manage to overcome this condition, which she recently said in an interview: "". It remains only to congratulate the wonderful actress on her anniversary, wish her many years and hope that her health will still allow her to give the audience the joy of seeing her more than once on stage and on screens!

Natalia Selezneva had a lot of funny episodes connected with the filming of Leonid Gaidai: How Shurik got a girlfriend Lida.