Yulia Menshova - 51: How the search for happiness and independence of the famous TV presenter and actress ended

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

July 28 marks the 51st year of the famous TV presenter and actress Yulia Menshova. For a long time she has not been presented as the daughter of famous parents - director Vladimir Menshov and actress Vera Alentova - there is no need for this, because Julia has long proven her own creative competence. Probably, only now she finally realized that she shouldn't prove anything to anyone else, because it took many years to find an independent creative path and personal happiness …

Yulia Menshova is an actress in the third generation. Her maternal grandfather and grandmother were also actors. It would seem that with such roots and with such famous parents, she could not worry about how her fate would turn out. Her path was indeed predetermined from birth, but the well-known surname rather created certain difficulties than helped, because for many years, those around her perceived her only as a "star girl" and the daughter of famous parents.

Parents did not show her patronage - they have always been her strictest and most demanding critics. Julia was not a spoiled child - when she was little, the family lived in cramped material conditions. My father studied in graduate school at VGIK, and worked part-time at night, unloading bread in a bakery. Mother soon after the birth of her daughter returned to work at the Pushkin Theater. When she was three months old, she was sent to a kindergarten, and later transferred to a five-day school. The family lived in a hostel, and the parents often left their daughter with their classmates, who did not have a performance that day. Because of this, Julia was called the "daughter of the regiment."

Unable to withstand the tests of hard life and disorder, Vera Alentova and Vladimir Menshov parted when their daughter was 3 years old. True, they were able to live apart for only 4 years, and then they realized their mistake and never parted. But even after that, they did not have more time for their daughter, and Julia spent most of the time with her grandmother, with whom she could hardly find a common language. From childhood, she was taught the main rule: her parents reached certain heights, but she has nothing to do with them, and must achieve her success on her own.

During her school years, Julia studied in a theater group, but did not seriously think about the acting profession. Much more at that time she was fond of literature, wrote essays and stories "on the table", but she had no published works, and from the intention to enter the Literary Institute. Gorky had to refuse. And then Menshova submitted documents to the Moscow Art Theater School. True, in order for the selection committee to evaluate her own talents and capabilities, and not the successes of her parents, she introduced herself as Julia Bolshova. She easily managed to go through all the rounds and enter the course of A. Kalyagin.

After graduating from the acting department with honors, Yulia Menshova was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater. A. Chekhov. But even this did not become a reason for her parents to finally recognize her successes. Once they came to her for an acting exam and after the show said: “” After that Menshova, every time, achieving some results, wondered if this was a consequence of her loud surname, and not the result of her own efforts.

In the early 1990s.she made her film debut, but her acting career began in one of the most unfavorable periods for the entire post-Soviet cinema and art in general. I had to leave the theater, and in the mid-1990s. Menshova came to television, where she was the editor of Viktor Merezhko's program "My Cinema", and then became the host of the program "I Myself", which brought her first popularity. In those years, television for some time "overshadowed" both theater and cinema, and the fame of the TV presenter was incomparable with the fame that acting work could bring to her. "", - said Menshova. Finally, she felt that she had found a name of her own.

Having achieved notable success on television, Yulia Menshova returned to the cinema. The pause in her film career lasted about 10 years, but in the new century she was able to find her place in the acting profession. The return was triumphant: one of the main roles in several seasons of the TV series "Balzac Age, or All Men Are Theirs …" brought her incredible popularity, after which Menshova began to receive new proposals from directors. After that, she returned to the theater, only in a new capacity: as a director Menshova prepared the production “Love. Letters ". In 2013, she became the host of the "Alone with Everyone" program, which gave a new round of Julia's popularity on television. Since 2017, together with Maxim Galkin, she has been broadcasting "Tonight".

Her path to personal happiness was just as long and difficult. Yulia Menshova married at the age of 27 to actor Igor Gordin, the couple had two children - a son Andrei and a daughter Taisiya. But at some point, the couple went through the same crisis as Julia's parents once had: the couple decided to leave. Both were sure that this was forever, but after 4 years, just like Menshov and Alentova, the family was reunited. Julia later did not consider this separation a mistake - in her opinion, it benefited both of them and allowed them to learn to truly appreciate the family and be more tolerant and tender towards each other.

She tries to build relationships in her family so as not to repeat the mistakes of her parents. Julia Menshova developed her own formula for happiness: not to be too strict and demanding of loved ones, always find time for the family, spend holidays together, be attentive to each other, generous with compliments and words of love and support. And, apparently, this formula works!

This series has become a landmark not only for Yulia Menshova: What do the actresses of "Balzac's age" have in common with their famous heroines?.