Why actress Makarova did not go to the funeral of director Gerasimov, with whom she lived together for 58 years

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

They met back at a time when Tamara Makarova and Sergei Gerasimov were unknown actors, in fact, just starting their way in art. And then they walked hand in hand through life and, it seemed, there could not be any force in the world that could separate them. With the light hand of his wife, Sergei Apollinarievich began directing, and his wife was his muse and starred in all of his films. But when the hour of farewell came, Tamara Fedorovna refused to go to her husband's funeral.

Joint ascent

Tamara Makarova studied ballet for many years, after graduating from the acting workshop of Foregger, but her career began with the very question that, for sure, many women still dream of hearing. "Girl, would you like to act in films?" - Asked Tamara Makarova assistant directors Kozintsev and Trauberg. She certainly wanted to. And I could not even imagine that these very first filming in the cinema would give her a meeting with the main man in her life, Sergei Gerasimov.

Sergei Gerasimov already had experience in cinema, which appeared during his years of study at the school of an eccentric actor in the "FEKS" workshop. Before the start of filming in the film "Alien Jacket", he managed to appear in several films.

However, even before meeting on the set, Tamara Makarova and Sergei Gerasimov crossed paths a couple of times, but they really met while working together. The novel was passionate and impetuous, and soon the young people already became husband and wife.

Tamara Makarova was able to conquer any man with her beauty. Sergei Gerasimov said: she was so good that when she crossed the street, cars stopped, and the drivers simply froze, unable to take their eyes off the beauty. But he himself was fascinated not only by the beauty of his wife, but also by her sharp mind, talent and some kind of mystical foresight.

It was she, at the very beginning of their life together, who advised Sergei Gerasimov to think about directing, despite the fact that his type was quite in demand in silent films. And she supported her spouse in every possible way when his first experiments in filming were not very successful. Tamara Makarova advised him not to give up and continue to develop a new field of activity, even threatened him somehow, jokingly, that she would not live with a simple, albeit famous, actor.

And then the film "Seven Brave" was released on the screens, which successfully passed across the country. Tamara Makarova played the main role in it. Later she will star in other films of her husband. And it will always inspire his admiration, even when it celebrates its 70th anniversary.

He never hid how proud he was of his wife. Yes, and Tamara Makarova did not hide her feelings. Once she said that she would like to go along with Sergei Gerasimov all the way, to the very end, and in adulthood to play a woman of the corresponding age in his last film.

A goodbye without a meeting

More than half a century of happiness, love, fear - it was their life, long and very eventful. They were not two halves of one whole. Each of them was a bright individual and did not know how, and did not want to dissolve in another person.

But Sergei Apollinarievich all his life invariably admired her beauty. There were always three photographs on his desk at home. On one, the director was captured with Charlie Chaplin, on the other he, still small, with relatives, and on the third there were only eyes. The eyes of Tamara Fedorovna.

She never made an idol out of her beauty. Her make-up was very restrained, she did not dye her hair at all, even when she began to turn gray. Tamara Makarova never resorted to the help of plastic surgeons and at the same time she was aging very beautifully. But she did morning exercises every day and took a cold shower, played tennis and always "kept her posture."

At first, Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova did not leave the besieged Leningrad, where the actress worked as a nurse in a hospital, and the director filmed a film about the defenders of the city. Then they were nevertheless evacuated to Central Asia, after which they returned not to Leningrad, but to Moscow.

The spouses did not have children of their own, and they adopted the son of Tamara Fedorovna's younger sister. Artur Sergeevich Makarov, when he grew up, became a writer and screenwriter. And they also had hundreds of students, whom Gerasimov and Makarova treated like their own children.

They have never been creatively dependent on each other. Tamara Makarova starred with other directors, Gerasimov invited other actresses to the main roles. But in the last film directed by Leo Tolstoy, they starred together. As Tamara Fedorovna wanted, she played the role of an old woman and was not at all shy about her age.

Sergei Apollinarievich played Count Tolstoy, his wife played the writer's wife Sofya Andreevna. When the scene with the funeral of Leo Tolstoy was filmed, Tamara Makarova literally begged in this case to use a dummy. But Gerasimov refused to use the doll, and since then fear has settled in his wife's heart. Actors are very superstitious and usually refuse to play death scenes.

A year after the release of the picture on the screen, the director died. He had heart problems for a long time, but this time he ended up in the hospital. Tamara Fedorovna visited him every day, and on that fateful day he suddenly volunteered to see her off and jumped out of bed very cheerfully. At the same moment, a sharp pain struck him. “The music didn’t play for long” - only Sergei Gerasimov managed to say before he was taken to the intensive care unit, from where he never left.

After the news of her husband's death, Tamara Makarova herself was in a very bad condition. Anything happened in their life: there were misunderstandings, sometimes the spouses quarreled, Tamara Fedorovna knew about Sergei Apollinarievich's hobby for other women. But they never learned to live without each other.

On the day of Sergei Gerasimov's funeral, Tamara Fedorovna felt so bad that she simply could not physically leave the house. But she consoled herself that she had time to say goodbye to her husband. There, in the hospital room, when he fell …

Tamara Makarova, immediately after her husband left, did not accept a single proposal for filming, she stopped teaching at VGIK. She seemed to have lost interest in life. But with her remained the memory of that endless love that had been with her all her life. She outlived her husband for 11 years and all this time dreamed of meeting him there, in the best of worlds.

In the filmography of Tamara Makarova, there are only about 30 movie roles, but most of them are the main ones. One of her most striking works was the role of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in the film fairy tale "Stone Flower". Though this film received international recognition, none of the actors who played the main roles managed to take advantage of any privileges, and their creative destinies can hardly be called happy …