Russian goddess with a non-Soviet appearance: what Tatyana Samoilova had to pay for her popularity

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

May 4 - the day that became a double reason to remember the name of one of the most beautiful and mysterious actresses of Soviet cinema, People's Artist of Russia Tatiana Samoilova … This day marks 84 years from the date of her birth and 3 years from the date of her death. She passed away on her 80th birthday, leaving after the collapse of the Soviet Union without work and without a family, although in the 1960s. was one of the most popular and desired stars of the Soviet screen. But for this success she had to pay dearly.

Tatyana Samoilova grew up behind the scenes and from childhood dreamed of going on stage just like her father, the famous Soviet actor Yevgeny Samoilov. Once she said: “I want, like you, dad, to act in a movie, and then walk down the street and say hello to everyone. I know it will be that way someday. And she did not change her dream. After school, Samoilova became a volunteer at the Shchukin school - one point was not enough for admission.

In "Pike" Samoilova met her first love - he was the most beautiful student on the course, Vasily Lanovoy. Many girls ran after him, but he chose Samoilova, and soon they got married. Before the wedding, both cherished innocence and treated each other very reverently. The young lived with Tatyana's parents, but the cramped conditions and everyday difficulties did not bother anyone then.

Samoilova still had to leave the school - students were forbidden to act in films, and she played in the film "Mexican". And then she was offered a role in the film "The Cranes Are Flying". Only many years later, the already famous actress Tatyana Samoilova was symbolically awarded a diploma from the Shchukin School - as a recognition of her merits in the acting profession.

Nobody predicted the success of the film "The Cranes Are Flying". Khrushchev called the heroine Samoilova "a shaggy walking woman", critics smashed the actress to smithereens: they wrote that "bare feet are incompatible with the image of a Komsomol member", that Samoilova has a "non-Soviet appearance" and on the screen she looks vulgar and vulgar. And six months later, the film received the highest prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and Samoilova was awarded the award for Best Actress.

Pablo Picasso called her "the Russian goddess" and predicted her worldwide fame in the acting profession. After the triumph at the Cannes Film Festival, Samoilova received proposals from foreign directors - she was invited to Hollywood to play the role of Anna Karenina. Of course, the leadership of the State Film Agency categorically forbade her to act abroad. The actress did not regret that she did not become a Hollywood star, but she was very worried that she could not act with Gerard Philip - he was supposed to become her partner in Anna Karenina. Samoilova really played Karenina - but only in the Soviet version of 1967, which was recognized as a reference.

Despite the professional successes of both Samoilova and Lanovoy, their family life was not happy. The actress focused on her career and had an abortion for her. As it turned out, they could have had twins, and Lanovoy could not forgive his wife for this act. For the first time after the divorce, they met on the set of "Anna Karenina" and found the strength to play the lovers so convincingly that the audience believed it. But at that time, nothing else united them.

The second time Samoilova married the writer Valery Osipov, this marriage lasted 10 years, but they also did not have children. The third chance was given to her by fate at 35, when the actress had an affair with the theater administrator Eduard Moshkovich. Later, she called this connection accidental, but thanks to her, the long-awaited son Dmitry was born.

Oddly enough, after filming Anna Karenina, the directors did not bombard Samoilova with new proposals, and the only way to earn money for her was visiting concerts. The son had to be left first in the boarding school, and then with his grandmother. The child has not seen his mother for weeks. And when he grew up, he married an American and went with her to the United States.

After the departure of her son and the death of her parents, Tatyana Samoilova felt completely alone. In the cinema, only cameo roles were offered, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, she practically did not act in film. “Life so happened that I was not a star for long. I have starred in 20 films. And then, somehow unexpectedly for myself, I realized that everything had passed by … What was left? It was necessary to give birth. And I devoted myself to cinema,”the actress says with regret. On May 4, 2014, she passed away on her 80th birthday.

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