Why Anastasia Vertinskaya stopped acting in films: fears and addictions of "Vivien Leigh of the Soviet screen"

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

December 19 marks 71 years of the People's Artist of the RSFSR, theater and film actress Anastasia Vertinskaya … In the 1960-1970s. she was one of the most popular and most beautiful Soviet actresses. After a resounding success in theater and cinema, Vertinskaya suddenly disappeared from the screens. Today she does not regret leaving the acting profession, because she had her own reasons for that.

Anastasia's parents were the famous singer, composer and poet Alexander Vertinsky and actress Lydia Tsirgvava, who was 34 years younger than her husband. The father tried to give his daughters - Marianne and Anastasia - a versatile education. Anastasia dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but she was not admitted to the ballet school because of her excess weight.

She first came to the set at the age of 15, and her first role brought her incredible success - it was Assol in the film "Scarlet Sails", which was watched by 23 million viewers in the first year alone. A year later, she got the main role in the film "Amphibian Man", and this picture became the leader of the box office in 1962. It was in the role of Gutierre that Anastasia Vertinskaya was remembered and loved by millions of Soviet viewers, although the actress herself later called this work banal and ridiculous. After the role of Ophelia in "Hamlet" she was called "Vivien Leigh of the Soviet screen."

The all-Union popularity of the girl did not please, but frightened. She was constantly pursued by strangers, on the streets all the time someone came up for an autograph, young people too persistently sought her location, and she did not understand how she deserved such attention - after all, she herself did not consider herself a real actress.

Vertinskaya recalls those times with horror: “If I was traveling on the Moscow-Leningrad train in an ordinary compartment, then a full carriage of people wishing to drink with me would be packed to me. In the queues I was constantly signing autographs - I wrote on money, on my hands … One fan once threw a handful of sand in my eyes”. Since then, she developed a fear of the crowd, which grew into a real phobia. Until now, Vertinskaya avoids a crowded society and secular parties.

She could call herself a professional in her field only after she graduated from the Shchukin School, starred in dozens of films, and played in many performances. Vertinskaya took her work very seriously and was never afraid of difficulties: during the underwater filming in "Amphibian Man", she abandoned the understudy and dived herself without a scuba gear and swam in icy water, in "The Master and Margarita" she was filmed at the top of the fire engine stairs, at a speed of 120 km per hour.

Anastasia Vertinskaya was married once, and calls Nikita Mikhalkov her only husband, although she was romantically involved with other famous artists: after breaking up with Mikhalkov, she had an affair with Alexander Gradsky, for 20 years she remained with Oleg Efremov, although they never got married. Vertinskaya calls the father and son Stepan Mikhalkov the main men in her life and does not regret that she did not accept any of the many marriage proposals: “Marriage is not mine,” says the actress. "It's good that I realized this early and avoided many mistakes."

In 1991, Vertinskaya established and headed the Russian Actors' Charitable Foundation, which helps needy theater and film veterans. The actress devotes a lot of time to caring for her father's legacy: she releases discs with his songs, publishes memoirs and poems, and is engaged in the restoration of unknown recordings of Alexander Vertinsky. She helped her son run the restaurant business: she cooks well, so she often suggested ideas for restaurant menus. In 2014, due to the crisis, the restaurants "Indus" and "Vertinsky" were closed, and Anastasia began to republish her mother's memoirs.

In recent years, there have been no worthwhile offers from directors, and the actress will never agree to play the killer's mother - she does not want to lower the bar. Today Vertinskaya does not regret leaving the cinema - she is very comfortable with her loved ones. “I focused on my family and my father's legacy,” she says. The actress does not rank herself among the stars of show business and prefers to be called a representative of the Russian intelligentsia.

The famous singer adored his daughters and dedicated poems to them: "Daughters" by Alexander Vertinsky - a touching fatherly declaration of love.