The moment of glory and the years of oblivion of Nina Ivanova: Why did the star of the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street" disappear from the screens

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

In the mid-1950s. amateur actress Nina Ivanova unexpectedly for herself, she became a star of Soviet cinema and gained all-Union popularity - after she performed the main role in the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street". She starred in several more films, and then disappeared from the screens. Today she is rarely remembered, her life is not connected with cinema, she does not appear in public and does not communicate with journalists. The name of Nina Ivanova turned out to be undeservedly forgotten …

Nina Ivanova was born in 1934 in Moscow into a family that had nothing to do with the world of cinema. She got to the set by accident - at the age of 9, Nina caught the eye of the director of the film "Once upon a time there was a girl", who was looking for young actresses for a picture about children who had undergone the blockade. Filming took place in Leningrad in 1943 during the breaks between air raids, and the film was released in 1944. The film won a prize at the Venice International Film Festival, and the young actress gained her first popularity.

There is very little reliable information about her biography. According to one source, Nina Ivanova entered a medical school after leaving school. According to others, she never graduated from school, because of material difficulties in a large family, after the 8th grade, she went to work at a factory. Due to her incomplete secondary education, the girl could not enter a theater university, and later, when she was advised to finish her studies, she said that after the role of a teacher in Spring on Zarechnaya Street, going to a school for working youth is “shame and shame”.

Nina Ivanova got her starring role thanks to a lucky chance. While working at the plant, she starred in the graduation projects of graduates of theatrical universities. And in one of these short films, director Marlen Khutsiev noticed her. And despite the fact that she was not a professional actress, he entrusted her with the main role in the film Spring on Zarechnaya Street, which became the leader of the film distribution in the mid-1950s. - it was watched by more than 33 million viewers.

Critics still argue about the phenomenon of the incredible popularity of this film. An ordinary plot at first glance, thanks to the original directorial finds and the brilliant acting of the actors, did not leave anyone indifferent. The images created by Nikolai Rybnikov and Nina Ivanova were so lively and believable that many viewers recognized themselves and their friends in their heroes. Many women burned their hair with a fork or tongs hot on the stove to make the same curl on their temples - “a curl of passion,” as they called it - as the charming teacher of the school of working youth Tatyana Sergeevna had. From all over the country, fans sent her letters with an offer of marriage.

Actor Gennady Yukhtin, who played the role of engineer Krushenkov in the film, said: "".

It was impossible not to fall in love with her heroine - the witnesses of the filming explained this magic by the fact that "the camera looked at her with loving eyes." The fact is that while working on the film, Nina Ivanova began an affair with the film's operator Radomir Vasilevsky. At that time he was married, but for the sake of the actress he left his wife and 4-year-old daughter and left with his beloved for Odessa. For some time they lived in a civil marriage, and Vasilevsky received an official divorce only in 1960. The director of the Odessa Film Studio Museum Vadim Kostromenko recalled: " And in the early 1960s. their marriage fell apart. Vasilevsky soon married again, but Nina Ivanova never got married and did not give birth to children.

In the 1960s. the actress starred in several more films, but none of these roles could compare with her starring role in Spring on Zarechnaya Street. And in 1966 Nina Ivanova decided to leave the acting profession. The last time she appeared on the screens in 1974 in the film "You Can Still Make It" and since then has never again appeared on the set.

In the second half of the 1960s. Nina Ivanova returned to Moscow, finished directing courses, filmed several scenes for Yeralash and worked as an assistant director at the Gorky Film Studio for 20 years. She herself did not become a director. And in the late 1980s, when the cinema was going through hard times, she left the studio and got a job as a nurse in a hospital.

Since then, nothing has been heard about her. The actress led a secluded life and did not give interviews. Once she was found by journalist Roman Pobedinsky, who in 2001 was preparing a series of programs about the forgotten names of Soviet cinema. He told about their meeting: "".

The actress admitted: "". In 2014, Nina Ivanova celebrated her 80th birthday.

After filming, Nina Ivanova never saw Nikolai Rybnikov, and his creative destiny, despite the incredible success in the 1950s-1960s, also developed dramatically. Hostage of the image of the foreman: Why did the guy from Zarechnaya street Nikolai Rybnikov stop acting in films.