Nina Ruslanova - 75: What fans don't know about the famous actress

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

December 5 marks the 75th anniversary of the popular actress, People's Artist of the Russian Federation Nina Ruslanova. In the cinema, she was often offered images of characteristic heroines - broken, sharp-tongued, down-to-earth "women from the people." The actress was often identified with her heroines, such as, for example, Katka-Airport from "Gypsy". But behind the scenes, she was neither as frivolous, nor as absurd, nor as rude as the audience was used to seeing her.

Probably, most viewers have long known that Nina Ruslanova did not know either her real name or the exact date of birth - she grew up in an orphanage in the city of Bohodukhiv, on the street of which she was found abandoned when she was only 2 months old. As a child, Nina changed 6 orphanages. According to her confession, she received love only from one teacher, Matryona Timofeevna, who treated her with honey, and from all the others around, she did not remember anything in relation to herself, except for indifference and cruelty. She was often beaten - both by the orphanage children and by the teachers. Surprisingly, because of this, she did not get angry with the whole world - according to Ruslanova, this only tempered her character and taught her to appreciate love. In the future, she was able to build a strong family, which she never had, and become a good mother, protecting her daughter from any manifestations of cruelty.

She was artistic from childhood and began to appear on stage in the orphanage, so she was named Ruslanova in honor of the singer Lydia Ruslanova, although Nina never sang. However, at first she did not seriously think about the acting profession - at first she received the profession of a painter-plasterer, since they were usually sent from orphanages to either construction or vocational schools. She herself dreamed of becoming a geologist, but she understood that her knowledge of physics and chemistry would not be enough to enter this faculty. Once she saw an ad for the Kharkov Theater Institute and decided to try her luck. The first attempt was not successful, but a year later she managed to carry out her plan. After studying there for 2 years, Ruslanova left the institute and went to conquer the capital. From the very first attempt she was admitted to the Shchukin school.

While still a student, she began acting in films, and her first work in a full-length film was the main role in Kira Muratova's film "Short Encounters", for which the actress received her first "Nika" award. The head of the course, Vera Lvova, treated Ruslanova so warmly that she even settled her with her when the girl had nowhere to live in Moscow. Even when Nina married a student at Moscow State University Gennady Rudakov, they first lived with Lvov.

When Nina Ruslanova found out that she was expecting a child, she was incredibly happy, but the doctors suddenly put her in front of a terrible choice: either her life, or the life of her daughter. As it turned out, the actress had a heart defect, and the birth could have been fatal. But she decided to leave the child and asked to save her daughter's life in case of complications during childbirth. Fortunately, everything ended well - they both survived. "", - the actress admitted.

Olesya loved her mother very much and was always proud of her. She said about her: “” True, her popularity often turned into a real drama for her: after the all-Union success of the film “Gypsy”, classmates teased her daughter Katka-Airport - a frivolous accessible woman (though they chose stronger expressions for this). But after the premiere of the film, Ruslanova herself was literally carried in her arms: once in Nizhny Novgorod she was driving from the concert hall to the station, a gypsy camp was passing by, they noticed the actress, recognized her, lifted the car and carried a few meters in her arms. The actress said: "".

In fact, she had little in common with her heroine - Nina Ruslanova was never frivolous. After childhood, she dreamed of a strong family all her life. Unfortunately, her first marriage fell apart after 7 years. But with her second husband, sound engineer Rafkat Gabitov, she lived in a civil marriage for about 30 years.

Despite all the difficulties that she had to endure, Nina Ruslanova believed that she was born under a lucky star. Indeed, she succeeded in what many of her colleagues did not: build a very successful acting career and at the same time find happiness in family life and raise a child, although, of course, she could not pay much attention to her daughter because of her constant employment. She never had pauses in work - even during the Perestroika era and during the crisis of the 1990s. Nina Ruslanova remained a popular actress and played several very striking roles in the films Return of Budulai, Valentine and Valentine, Winter Cherry, Tomorrow Was War, Heart of a Dog, Winter Cherry-2, Mom, do not be sad!"

In life behind the scenes, Nina Ruslanova has always been much thinner, softer, more intelligent than many of her screen heroines, although she was not inferior to them in temperament and expressiveness. And the main thing that unites her with them is unbending will, strong character and incredible love of life. The actress admits that she was taught this thirst for life in the orphanage: even if you have to struggle with difficulties, do not complain about anything and go towards your goal. It remains only to congratulate the wonderful actress on her anniversary and thank for the lessons that she presented to her viewers both in the frame and behind the scenes!

At the Shchukin School, the actress met another talented artist, who became for her not only a classmate and colleague: How Nina Ruslanova became the sister of Alexander Kaidanovsky.