Where did the star of the film "Seven old men and one girl" disappear: The ruined talent of Svetlana Savelova

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

The creative path of Svetlana Savelova was very short - her star lit up in the early 1960s, and in 1968 a film was released, which became both her calling card and one of the last works in cinema - “Seven old men and one girl . After that, one of the most beautiful young actresses of the USSR disappeared from the screens, and only in the late 1990s. they started talking about her again - this time in connection with her premature departure. What was the reason for the sudden finale of Svetlana Savelova's film career, and why her life ended at 57 - further in the review.

Director Yakov Segel for his film Farewell, Doves! for a long time I could not find an actress for the main role. He reviewed the photographs of almost all the students of theatrical universities and even the familiar members of the film crew, but none of the candidates suited him. He advertised in a newspaper for a girl under 18, but again the search was unsuccessful. When the film crew went to Crimea to choose a nature, the director accidentally saw a young girl who graduated from school a year ago in a pharmacy in Sevastopol, and realized that this was exactly the type that he had been looking for for so long. He was not embarrassed by the fact that the girl had neither professional education nor filming experience. So Svetlana Savelova got into the cinema.

She was born in 1942 in Simferopol and from childhood dreamed of becoming a doctor. Her father died in the war, and her mother worked as a medical assistant in a hospital. After school, Svetlana was going to enter a medical institute, and while she was preparing for exams, she got a job at a pharmacy as a dispenser of medicines. And the director's proposal came as a complete surprise to her.

From her youth, Svetlana was distinguished by a spectacular appearance and noticed how passers-by stare at her on the streets. And in the frame, she looked like a real movie star. After the release of her debut film, Savelova really became a star - in the USSR "Farewell, pigeons!" watched by 22 million people, the film received prizes in Locarno and Melbourne, and directors drew attention to the young actress.

After the end of filming, Savelova entered the Shchukin School, where Alexander Kalyagin and Valentin Smirnitsky became her classmates. While still a student, she continued to act in films - she played the main roles in the film "Green Light" and in the film-play "The Story of Young Spouses". And after graduation she was accepted into the troupe of the Lenkom theater.

In the late 1960s. Savelova starred in several films, one of which became the pinnacle of her career. The comedy "Seven Old Men and One Girl" brought Svetlana all-Union popularity. Natalia Selezneva, Olga Ostroumova, Lyudmila Gladunko applied for the role of the young coach Lena Velichko, but Svetlana Savelova bypassed all competitors. Then it seemed to her that after such a triumph there would be many more star roles ahead, but life decided otherwise.

In the same 1968, a new project was launched at Mosfilm - the film In Russia. The script was frankly weak, and they decided to save it with a stellar cast, inviting the actors known for the film "Goodbye, pigeons!" - Svetlana Savelova and Alexei Loktev. But even popular artists did not influence the situation - the film flopped. And after that Savelova never appeared anywhere else.

Since then, only the theater has remained in her life. There, her creative destiny could have developed successfully. After director Mark Zakharov came to Lenkom, Savelova got new roles - he considered her a very good actress and entrusted one of the main roles in the play Three Girls in Blue. But even then she missed all the chances that fate gave her. Soon, she only had roles in extras.

The personal life of the actress also did not work out. There were always many men around the blonde beauty, but this did not bring her happiness. Savelova's first student marriage lasted only a year. Later, Nikolai Karachentsov courted her. He was madly in love with a young actress and was even going to marry her, but their relationship did not work out. And then the actress began to live with a policeman who abused alcohol, and because of him, Svetlana herself became addicted to alcohol. She had no children. Failures in her personal life alienated her from the theater, she began to miss rehearsals. Attempts by Mark Zakharov to influence her were unsuccessful. The director endured for a long time, did not want to fire the actress, but now he could only entrust her with roles in the crowd.

In recent years, the star of the 1960s. left all alone. She drank a lot and practically did not communicate with anyone - acquaintances said that she had a difficult and wayward character. In the 1980s. she changed her dwelling in the city center for an apartment on the outskirts and completely disappeared from the sight of her acquaintances. She came to Lenkom only on payday. Mark Zakharov tried to support Savelova to the last, hoping that she would overcome her addiction and return to normal life. But that never happened.

When at the end of January 1999 Svetlana Savelova died in her apartment, they did not even know about it right away. Her body was found only on the 3rd day. She had no relatives, and the theater was involved in organizing her funeral. She had to be buried in a suit from the Lenkom props - at that time she did not have any decent clothes. The exact cause of death of the 57-year-old actress was not named then; acquaintances suggested that it was alcohol intoxication. So sadly ended the life of one of the main beauties of Soviet cinema of the 1960s.

She was the real face of her era: Photos of Soviet women who are completely different from our contemporaries.