Why Mark Bernes' first wife died alone after 25 years of marriage

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

As a rule, love stories of the great and famous always begin beautifully and romantically, but end in different ways. And sometimes it is completely overwhelming. First true love Mark Bernes and began altogether as in the novel "The Master and Margarita". It was to him - a poor, unknown theater actor - that a young and very beautiful actress Paola Linetskaya left a rather famous and wealthy husband. And having lived with the actor for a quarter of a century, once she more than once regretted her fatal decision …

There is a type of people who seem to be woven from contradictions, and therefore it is very difficult for others to understand them. It is to this type that the Soviet pop star, theater and film actor Mark Bernes can be attributed.

It should be noted that everyone who knew Mark closely, including his best friends, always spoke of him as a very difficult person. Many people called him "Mark himself Naumovich" behind his back. And his roles in the cinema, where the actor played open, soulful romantic heroes, did not correspond much to his character. Mark Naumovich himself was not like them. He liked beautiful women, expensive restaurants, imported suits, new cars - he loved life in all its manifestations. And life loved him. For the time being …

His ambition, toughness, entrepreneurial spirit, and at the same time his unlimited charm, he skillfully used to achieve his goals. And, probably, his friend Zinovy Gerd described Bernes best of all with a few epithets: …

And that's how it all began

Mark Bernes (at birth - Menachem-Man Neuhovich Neiman) was born in Nizhyn, near Chernigov, grew up in Kharkov. After leaving school, the father insisted that his son go to study as an accountant, which the guy soon left. He went to work as a posters, and also began to attend courses at the theater college. It was in the Kharkov theater that he played his first small role, replacing the sick artist. And also the savvy guy, quickly realizing that with the surname "Neiman" he was far from breaking through, he came up with a sonorous pseudonym "Bernes".

When the whole truth about the son's deeds surfaced, a serious scandal erupted in the Neyman's house. The father, who had worked as a junk dealer all his life, did not want to hear about his only son going to the artists. But Mark was not so easy to dissuade …

He was barely seventeen when he fled from parental edification to Moscow to try his luck. In fairness, it should be noted that by nature he was not so much talented as a quick-witted guy. Upon arrival in the capital, Mark got a job in two theaters at once: the Bolshoi and the Maly. True, at first he was an extra, and later he began to receive small roles. And, like Figaro, he managed to play both there and there at the same time, and so that no one even knew about his agility. And this gave him every right to represent himself as "an artist of large and small academic theaters."

Of course, all the efforts of the young adventurer were not in vain. Some nine years will pass, and the whole country will recognize the name of Bernes. He will become one of the most famous actors of the Soviet Union, he will be adored by a multimillion-dollar audience, the popularity of Mark will reach a fantastic scale.

Well, needless to say after that that Bernes enjoyed the greatest attention of women … He always achieved his goal both in his career and in love.

Fateful meeting

The first meeting between Polina Linetskaya, a young prima of a private theater, and Mark Bernes, an unknown actor who played small episodic roles, took place in 1930 on the stage of the Korsch Theater. The spectacular 19-year-old Linetskaya at that time not only shone on the theater stage, but was also married to a very wealthy famous engineer. Of course, Polina did not even think about becoming the wife of Bernes, who played tertiary roles.

But Mark, barely looking into his partner's violet eyes, immediately announced to his friends that by all means, he would marry Linetskaya. From the memoirs of colleagues: something, but Bernes knew how to charm women perfectly. And, of course, he kept his word: two years of persistent courtship, and Paola left her wealthy husband for a beggar then Mark. In 1932, Linetskaya and Bernes got married.

A quarter of a century together

It was very difficult to call the married life of the spouses happy. Bernes, being a born ladies 'man, was a well-known ladies' man throughout the capital. A stamp in his passport and a wedding ring on his finger did not stop Bernes at all if he met a woman he liked on his way. Quite often, he came home only in the morning: drunk and often in lipstick. Curious friends pestered Mark with questions, what he says to Paola when he crosses the threshold of the house in this form. Bernes only laughed smugly: “I say: 'Hello, dear!', And she says the rest!”.

Linetskaya, of course, was jealous and very worried, but she loved him very much and wrote off her husband's betrayal for youth and creative nature. Whatever it was, but Mark and Paola lived under the same roof for a quarter of a century, even managed to play a silver wedding.

Bernes, however, settled down a little when Polina gave birth to her only daughter Natalia after 21 years of marriage. Bernes adored his daughter, and with her birth, a serene happiness that could only be dreamed of entered their home. However, very soon and unexpectedly, this long-awaited and long-suffering happiness was smashed to smithereens. "Only pain, shame and panic remained. The damned fear was stronger than shame, stronger than reason, even stronger than love."

Bernes's little daughter was four years old, when Paola became very ill, she literally fade away before our eyes. The doctors' verdict was terrible - the last stage of oncology. Bernes's legs were shaking with horror. But he was worried not for his beloved wife, not for his little daughter, who was about to be left without a mother … Most of all then he was afraid of getting infected himself. Apparently, such a horror before the disease was caused by the fact that quite shortly before that, the actor's relatives - his father, and then his sister - had died from oncology. And no matter how the doctors tried to prove that the disease was not contagious, and like friends and relatives did not cry for sympathy for his dying wife, Bernes listened only to his own fear.

According to his instructions, the living space was divided into two halves: Paola was forbidden to enter Bernes, and he certainly did not go to its half. Mark also ordered the housekeeper to share all the things, and flatly refused to communicate with his sick wife. And no sound arguments and appeals to conscience could convince him. The unfortunate woman spent the last two most painful months of her life in a hospital bed. And Bernes never visited her …

This kind of betrayal is probably the most terrible thing that a person can commit in relation to another, with whom a quarter of a century has been lived. Paula died alone in 1956, having experienced not only terrible physical but also unbearable mental pain. And she was then only 45 …

And the widower, after the funeral of his wife, first of all ordered the servants to thoroughly wash the whole house. However, the famous actor has always had a pathological phobia. Before each of his appearances on stage, he always checked his pulse, and if he seemed to Bernes quickened, he simply canceled the concert. What can you say … and the greats have, though small, but weaknesses.

Retribution

Nevertheless, Mark Naumovich, as he did not try to protect himself from illness, was not destined to live to a ripe old age. He died at the age of 57, having outlived Polina Linetskaya by only thirteen years. Ironically, Bernes was killed by cancer, which he was so terribly afraid of …

In the spring of 1969, doctors misdiagnosed infectious sciatica, and later it turned out that it was advanced lung cancer. Bernes refused to believe this, he shouted to the doctor: In the last days of his life, his second wife Lilia Bodrova was with him, who practically did not leave him. Feeling the end approaching, he asked Lilia Mikhailovna to leave, but when the woman went to the door, Bernes asked in surprise:

I wonder if in those terrible moments the actor thought about his cowardice and betrayal in relation to his first wife Paola, who, dying, did not feel the support of the closest and dearest person next to her? Most likely, in the depths of his soul, he guessed: fate avenges him for Paola.

You can read a more detailed story about the late love of the famous film and theater actor, as well as the Soviet pop singer of the middle of the last century, Mark Naumovich Bernes and Lilia Bodrova, in the review: “After 40, Life Is Just Beginning”: the swan song of the popular favorite of Mark Bernes.

Read about the work of the legendary singer and actor who became the favorite of the Soviet people: Mark Bernes is a mascot of composers, a genius with a bad character: "I have no voice, but I have brains!"