Behind the scenes of the film "The Woman Who Sings": How Alla Pugacheva's hoax caused a storm of indignation

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

The musical melodrama "The Woman Who Sings" became a film debut for Alla Pugacheva and made a splash in 1979, gathering 55 million viewers and becoming the leader of the box office. But what happened behind the scenes of this film was more interesting than the plot of the film. It turns out that they wanted to replace Alla Pugacheva with another singer, and during the filming the prima donna staged such a hoax, because of which the composer Alexander Zatsepin, the author of the famous songs from this film, did not communicate with her for many years …

The script for the film was originally written for Alla Pugacheva. The idea to shoot a musical melodrama about the singer came from the composer Alexander Zatsepin and the poet Leonid Derbenev after Pugacheva's brilliant performance at the Golden Orpheus competition. After that, she became the number 1 star on the Soviet stage and, according to the authors' idea, the film with her participation was guaranteed success at the box office. The script was written by the author of detective stories Anatoly Stepanov, and the director was Alexander Orlov, who already knew the singer - she had already recorded songs for his films.

According to the plot, pop singer Anna Streltsova is looking for her place in music and is going through dramatic events in her personal life: she becomes a mother, breaks up with her husband, one brings up a child, thanks to her acquaintance with a talented poet, she finds her songs and begins a solo career, becomes famous, but at the same time never gains personal happiness. The first version of the script, entitled "Third Love", was rejected at the film studio with the following wording: "".

After the scriptwriter made all the necessary edits, the State Film Agency approved the script, but then a new difficulty arose - this time Alla Pugacheva herself was dissatisfied. It seemed to her that this story no longer resembles her own, and the character of the heroine is not at all the same as hers. And she with all her categoricalness declared to the director of "Mosfilm": either she will play as she sees fit, or she will refuse filming altogether! After that, it was decided to find another singer for this role instead of Pugacheva.

The role of Anna Streltsova was offered to Lyudmila Gurchenko, but she felt that it was too late for her to play young singers. And then the filmmakers found the same age as Pugacheva, singer Valentina Ignatieva - soloist of the pop orchestra of Leonid Utesov and VIA "Merry Boys". In the 1970s. her popularity was so great that she was even included in the support group for Soviet athletes at the Munich Olympics. In addition, she also had experience in filming a movie - she played a small role in the film "Races without a finish".

At the audition, Valentina Ignatieva played several scenes from the film and sang 5 songs in several characters. She successfully coped with her task, but then Alla Pugacheva found out about the competitor and demanded to test with her. The management of "Mosfilm" was shown both options, and then heated debates began: on the one hand, the management of the film studio did not want to have any more problems with the capricious and uncompromising star, on the other, Pugacheva's participation guaranteed the film's success with the audience. In the end, the choice was made in her favor. And Valentina Ignatieva in the same year got the main role in the film "The Velvet Season". True, in the future, neither her acting career, nor her singing career did not work out.

The expectation that the audience will arrange sold out in cinemas, having seen the name of Alla Pugacheva on the posters, turned out to be very correct. The audience's interest was fueled long before the premiere by numerous publications in the press, presenting the film as a biographical one and promising to reveal the secrets of the singer's personal life. In fact, there were almost no real facts from her life, except for some details. So, for example, the story of the appearance of the song "The Woman Who Sings" was really taken from her life. Once Pugacheva caught the eye of Kaisyn Kuliev's poem "The Woman I Love". She wanted to make a song out of him, rewrote the lyrics in the first person, shortened the verses and changed the line "the woman I love" to "the woman who sings." She wrote the music for these verses together with the composer Leonid Garin. The title of the song also became the title for the film.

But the difficulties did not end there. Already in the process of filming, Alla Pugacheva arranged a grandiose hoax, which led to a big scandal. By that time, Alexander Zatsepin and Leonid Derbenev had already written several songs for the film, including the famous "This world was not invented by us." And then Pugacheva asked Zatsepin to allow her to record several songs for the radio in his studio - allegedly she found a talented young poet and composer Boris Gorbonos and wanted to sing his compositions.

And after that, with the recorded material, Pugacheva went to the director of the film and told him a touching story about the almost paralyzed, unknown creator Boris Gorbonos. She asked him to help and insert his songs into the film. For greater persuasiveness, the singer even showed a photograph of him, in which she herself was captured in male makeup, in a wig, glasses and a mustache. The songs were really good, the director was touched by this story, and Pugacheva achieved what she wanted.

She was a successful singer, but until then she had no opportunity to reveal her talents as a poet and composer. And then Pugacheva resorted to a hoax, about which she told: "". When the deception was revealed, Alexander Zatsepin flew into a rage: without the composer's consent, no one could insert songs into the film, and he refused to continue working, and their conflict with Pugacheva dragged on for many years. For a while they did not even say hello. At that time, the composer had already written songs for the film "June 31" "under Pugachev", but after that he gave them to Tatyana Antsiferova.

The audience did not know about all these difficulties, because of which the premiere of the film almost fell through. And they greeted her with unprecedented excitement! Critics smashed musical melodrama to smithereens for weak dramaturgy, for "vulgarity and concession to mass indiscriminate tastes." Even the director himself, Alexander Orlov, did not see any special achievements and discoveries in his film. "" - he admitted.

The fans of Alla Pugacheva did not care about these complaints - after all, they had the opportunity to see their favorite singer in a new role, listen to her new songs, and even find out the details of her alleged biography! As a result, the film "The Woman Who Sings" became the leader of the box office in 1979, gathering 55 million viewers, and Alla Pugacheva was named the best actress of the year according to the results of a poll by the magazine "Soviet Screen". And in the general list of leaders in the entire history of Soviet film distribution, this film took the 27th position.

She left the stage for a long time, but still attention to her has not waned: Rare photos and little-known facts about Alla Pugacheva.