The dramatic fate of the main Soviet Cinderella: why Yanina Zheimo left the cinema and emigrated to Poland

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

December 29 30 years ago, on the eve of the new 1988, a wonderful actress Janina Zheimo, which viewers will remember from the main role in the film "Cinderella" … Her fate little resembled a fairy tale: she had a chance to survive the war and the betrayal of loved ones and come to terms with the need to stay away from her homeland and from her daughter and granddaughter until the end of her days.

Yanina was born in 1909 in a family of circus performers, so she mastered all circus professions from childhood. She had to leave the circus when her father died. Then Yanina and her sister began performing on the stage with dance numbers. At the age of 14, due to a hormonal failure, Yanina suddenly stopped growing: her height remained at the 148 cm mark, which is why she worried all her life. She had to buy children's shoes and sew clothes to order. But it was precisely this feature that later became the main component of its success. The artist admitted: “My appearance - the structure of my face, small stature - determined my role: all my life I played teenage girls. It was a very big success."

However, success did not come to her immediately - when she first saw herself on the screen, she burst into tears. Her mother sowed even more doubts in her when she said: “On the stage she has a name, but in the cinema … The first one is behind. A bleak prospect. It took 20 years before the actress achieved recognition and all-Union popularity.

True, the audience fell in love with her long before the role of Cinderella: in the 1920s-1930s. she was remembered for the films "Brother", "Girlfriends", "The Adventures of Korzinkina" and others. They say that her first marriage fell apart due to the test of fame: the actor Andrei Kostrichkin could not forgive his wife for her greater popularity and left her in 1932.

The second husband of Janina Zheimo was director Iosif Kheifits. Soon after the wedding, they had a son, Julius, and everyone considered their family an example of a harmonious and lasting union, but during the war everything suddenly collapsed. Kheifits took his stepdaughter and son to evacuation to Alma-Ata, and he himself went to Tashkent to shoot a new picture. Yanina remained in Leningrad. Meanwhile, the husband was informed that she was dead. By the time the director found out that his wife had survived, he already had another woman. Ioannina was never able to forgive him for this betrayal and did not want to stay with him.

This blow affected the health of the actress: she was broken by paralysis, which she managed to get rid of in a non-standard way. Her doctor decided that she could only be cured if she wanted to: he gave her a "rare foreign medicine" and ordered her to be taken strictly according to the clock. When the patient recovered, the doctor admitted that the bottle was not a medicine, but ordinary boiled water.

Ioannina decided that she would never marry again and rejected the courtship of all fans. Polish director Leon Jeannot appeared next to her in the most difficult period of her life, helped to cope with depression and start a new life. She married Leon, and this marriage turned out to be the most harmonious and happy. It was at this time that she was offered the role of Cinderella, which became the creative pinnacle of her film career.

The 37-year-old actress, who played the 16-year-old Cinderella, was not approved immediately - the director was offered to take a young beautiful ballerina for this role, but screenwriter Yevgeny Schwartz rejected this candidacy, saying that the main thing in this character is not beauty, but tenderness, charm, naivety and the ability to evoke in the viewer not only sympathy, but also compassion. Time has shown that this was the right decision. The picture was an incredible success with the audience.

But after that there was a time of calm: no new roles were offered, Yanina dubbed foreign films, played in radio plays, but her husband did not have a job. He was offered to return to Poland, Janina did not dare to take this step for a long time, but agreed after her son was almost kicked out of school due to the fact that he put on a badge with the coat of arms of Warsaw.

In Poland, Leon got a job at a film studio, his son entered the film school, Yanina was engaged in housekeeping, and her daughter and granddaughter remained in the USSR. The actress no longer acted in films and was very homesick. She spent the last 30 years of her life in Poland. The actress died in 1987 and, according to her will, was buried in Moscow.

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