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Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm: A Lifetime Office Romance
Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm: A Lifetime Office Romance

Video: Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm: A Lifetime Office Romance

Video: Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm: A Lifetime Office Romance
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Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm
Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm

In their life, the main thing has always been cinema, without which they could not imagine life. Cinematography has tied together two destinies: the magnificent actress Elena Kuzmina and the brilliant director Mikhail Romm. Their romance, which began on the set, grew into deep feelings and a long life together. Their names have become inseparable, and their feelings can serve as a shining example of the creative power of love.

Elena Kuzmina

Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Outskirts"
Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Outskirts"

Elena Kuzmina was only 16 when she was in Moscow visiting relatives. The girl dreamed of acting in films, and therefore found in the telephone directory the number of the then-famous operator Eduard Tisse and asked him head-on how one could get into the cinema without going through VGIK. Laughing, Tisse advised the young talent to enter the Petrograd FEKS (factory of an eccentric actor).

Who would have thought that a girl would take the advice literally and immediately after receiving a high school diploma, she would go to FEKS. For admission, she had to attribute two years to herself. During the exams, to the commission's request to demonstrate the sketch, the agitated Elena simply replied that it was precisely for this that she came to FEKS: to learn how to show.

Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Alone"
Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Alone"

And she studied. Selflessly and enthusiastically comprehended the basics of skill, mastered the sketches, and in 1929 she already starred in films with Kozintsev and Trauberg, who were extremely pleased with the young actress. Elena Kuzmina, although she did not like herself on the screen, answered positively to another proposal for filming.

When in 1933 she was offered a role in the film "Outskirts" by Boris Barnet, Elena Kuzmina was already considered an experienced actress. During the filming, a swift romance began, the lovers became husband and wife.

Boris Barnet, still from the film "Miss Mend"
Boris Barnet, still from the film "Miss Mend"

But for each of them, family life turned out to be a complete disappointment. Boris Barnett expected his wife to stay at home, patiently waiting for her husband to come home and raising her daughter. Elena Kuzmina not only did not want to leave the acting profession, but also was not going to put up with the constant betrayal of her husband. He turned out to be a noble ladies' man and saw nothing wrong with his enthusiasm for various girls. He himself was desperately jealous of his wife.

Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Horizon"
Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Horizon"

Elena less and less acted in films. Having received an offer from Mikhail Romm, she refused at the insistence of her husband. But Romm was not going to give up and in the end, Elena Kuzmina agreed.

Mikhail Romm

Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Romm

He did not like to remember his childhood and youth. The director was especially embarrassed when he was asked questions about working in the food squad. Mikhail Romm tried to immediately translate the topic of the conversation into his own work. He studied at the Goskoskol, which later became VGIK, graduated from the sculpture department of the institute.

Mikhail Romm
Mikhail Romm

He changed many positions before he managed to find his calling. Only in 1931, having got to work at Soyuzkino, Mikhail Romm realized what he would actually do in life. In 1934, he directed his first film, Pyshka. And then he received permission to shoot the film "Thirteen" and invited actress Elena Kuzmina to one of the main roles.

Love affair at work

Mikhail Romm, Vladimir Naumov, Andrei Konchalovsky, Erast Garin on the set of the film "Coin", 1962
Mikhail Romm, Vladimir Naumov, Andrei Konchalovsky, Erast Garin on the set of the film "Coin", 1962

Mikhail Romm was quite strict while working on the film. He was annoyed by the slightest inaccuracies in the work of the entire film crew, and the director constantly criticized everyone. Only Elena Kuzmina was not affected by his dissatisfaction. It was in her work that absolutely everything suited him. Rumors of an affair between the actress and the director immediately spread. Despite the fact that the filming took place in Central Asia, Boris Barnet was quickly informed about the relationship between Romm and Kuzmina.

Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Horsemen"
Elena Kuzmina, still from the film "Horsemen"

The jealous man arrived on the set, and especially gambling participants in the filming were ready to place bets in favor of Barnet, a former boxer whose blow Romm simply could not withstand.

To the surprise and even disappointment of the curious, there was not even a scuffle between the two directors. Barnett was convinced that his wife's romance was a figment of someone's wild imagination. True, while leaving, he nevertheless warned Lyolya, as he called her, so that she would not dare to look in the direction of Mikhail Romm.

Mikhail Romm is listening to phonograms in the control room
Mikhail Romm is listening to phonograms in the control room

But Lyolya was not one of those who blindly follow advice. On the contrary, she began to look closely at the director, finding him more and more attractive. Very little time passed and already Romm confessed his love to the actress. As it turned out, his feelings arose long before their meeting. By the beginning of the filming of the film "Thirteen", he managed to revise all the pictures with the participation of Elena Kuzmina.

Family creative union

Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm
Elena Kuzmina and Mikhail Romm

Soon Mikhail Romm and Elena Kuzmina registered their marriage. Their union was both family and creative. She played in all of his films until the ban on filming wives was issued. And the first film without his wife, Murder on Dante Street, disappointed the director, although it was a success at the box office.

Then Romm went to teaching, ceasing to make films in general. He brought up many excellent directors, but he himself did not shoot for six years. He broke his creative silence in 1962 by filming the film "10 days of one year". After him there was "Ordinary Fascism", which looked, without exaggeration, the whole world.

Mikhail Romm, Elena Kuzmina, Faina Ranevskaya on the set of the movie "Dream", 1941
Mikhail Romm, Elena Kuzmina, Faina Ranevskaya on the set of the movie "Dream", 1941

Elena Kuzmina did not stop acting, often absenting herself on creative business trips. But in Romm's office, in the most conspicuous place, there was always a portrait of the great master's wife.

The grave of Kuzmina and Romm at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow
The grave of Kuzmina and Romm at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow

For 34 years they walked hand in hand through life, creating their own cinema, their films, their roles. They were with each other and nothing could destroy their feelings. Mikhail Romm passed away in 1971, she - after 8 years. Elena Kuzmina and her husband rest next to the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. They are together forever, now in the best of worlds.

Grigory Chukhrai became one of the students of Mikhail Romm. He met his happiness at the beginning of the war, and married on May 9, 1944, exactly one year before the Victory. She was waiting for him from the front and waited only in 1946. And then life began …

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