Polish Countess of Soviet cinema: Why Beata Tyszkiewicz received a slap in the face from Konchalovsky, and why she disappeared from the screens

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

At home, she is called "the most beautiful face of Poland." In the cinema, she often got the role of aristocrats, and this is not surprising, because Beata Tyshkevich is a countess by birth. In the USSR, she was known and loved no less than in her homeland, and was represented only as “our famous actress”. Andron Konchalovsky discovered her talent for the Soviet audience, inviting her to the shooting of his "Noble Nest". What connected the Polish actress and the Soviet director, in addition to work, for which he once slapped her in the face, and why recently the actress has rarely been seen on screens - further in the review.

Beata's father is a count, and her mother came from the princely family of Potocki. As a child, Beata grew up in prosperity and luxury. After World War II, her father emigrated to Great Britain, and she, along with her mother and brother, settled in Warsaw, where she lived all her life. In those years, she learned about what need was - the family huddled in a 12-meter room without heating and water. Beata did not dream of an acting profession, but chance decided everything - once an assistant director came to her school and offered her a role in the film "Revenge". So her film career began. Later, Beata said: "".

In the mid-1960s. Beata Tyszkiewicz was already known far beyond the borders of Poland. They also knew her in the USSR - for her role in the film "Meeting with a Spy", but wide popularity came to her after filming Andron Konchalovsky's "Noble Nest". They had met a few years earlier, when Beata was invited in 1961 to a film festival in Moscow. There she met Sergei Mikhalkov, who invited her to his dacha, where all the bloom of the creative intelligentsia gathered, and introduced her to his sons. Andron and Beata had an affair, which both later recalled with the warmest feelings. For her sake, he was ready for any madness - once he even sold a piano to make her an expensive gift. Beata kept Konchalovsky's letters for many years and confessed: "".

In his book "Sublime Deception" Konchalovsky later spoke about their relationship: "". However, the marriage with Polish director Andzhdey Waida soon broke up.

In 1969, Beata again came to the USSR - to shoot "The Noble's Nest". Valery Plotnikov, a third-year student of VGIK, began to look after her, who photographed the filming process. Konchalovsky was jealous and irritated. Once there was an unpleasant incident that the actress did not like to remember. In one of the scenes, she did not manage to cry, and Konchalovsky slapped her in the face on a grand scale. Tyshkevich told about this later: "".

Despite this episode, they were later able to forgive each other for all insults and remained good friends. The actress called this role one of the best in her film career, and spoke of the slap in the face as a "production moment". Years later, at the Riga Film Festival, where Beata Tyshkevich presented the prize to Andron Konchalovsky, she said from the stage: “”.

After filming in the USSR, Beata Tyszkiewicz returned to Poland, where she continued her film career. She often got the role of aristocrats, and not only because the actress was a countess by birth - at any age she looked truly regal, elegant and sophisticated. Until the end of the 1970s.she shone on the screens, but then her film career began to decline - she more and more often got supporting roles. In the mid-1980s. it was forgotten in the USSR as well - in the era of perestroika, completely different heroines appeared in the cinema, and Polish films lost their popularity.

Only at the beginning of the new century, the Polish actress was remembered again in Russia: in 2001 she was invited to the war film "In August 1944 …", and in 2013 she starred in the film "Martha's Line". Although modern viewers are unlikely to recognize in her the very seductive beauty Varvara Lavretskaya from the "Noble Nest", "".

After the divorce from Andrzej Wajda, the actress got married twice more, but both marriages broke up. Today she calls love "" and "", and considers the birth of two daughters to be her main achievement.

In the past two decades, the actress has been filmed rarely, from time to time, on average in one film in 2-3 years. She has not been offered leading roles for a long time, but in the images of aristocrats she is still convincing - for example, in 2015 she played the countess in the Polish film "The Righteous One". However, she does not have to "play" the countess - the regal bearing even at 80 speaks for itself!

Only one Polish actress could compete with her in beauty and popularity in the USSR: Forgotten roles of Barbara Brylska and explicit scenes banned by the Soviet censorship.