Best role - Gaidai's wife: Why Nina Grebeshkova remained a supporting actress

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

Before his death, the famous director Leonid Gaidai confessed to his wife that he was very guilty before her. She prepared to hear something very unpleasant, but his "sin" turned out to be harmless for her: he asked forgiveness for never filming her in the lead roles. Nina Grebeshkova really appeared on the screens only in episodes, however, they were remembered more than many of the main roles - what is only the role of Gorbunkov's wife in "The Diamond Hand"! She never felt like an unrealized actress and believed that her best role was Gaidai's wife. And only she knew about what episodes from their lives the director captured in his legendary films.

Nina Grebeshkova was not going to become an actress and after school she applied to VGIK for the company with her friend. And I went to the exams for the company, registering last in line. And unexpectedly for herself, she passed on the first try! Later she found out that she had bypassed 2 thousand competitors, including Yuri Nikulin and Yuri Yakovlev, who were not accepted at that time.

Already in her first year, Nina began acting in films. And although the first role in the film "Brave People" was episodic, she was noticed both at the institute and on the streets, recognized and called a movie star. Then there were the films "Sports Honor", "Hypnosis Session" and "The Honor of a Comrade", and by the time of their marriage with Leonid Gaidai she was already a popular actress, and he was a novice, unknown director. That is why she refused to take his last name in the registry office - everyone already knew her as Grebeshkova. Gaidai was upset by this, but he supported his wife's decision.

When fame and recognition came to Leonid Gaidai, many envied her: being the director's wife for an actress is the key to a successful film career. But their couple was non-standard: Gaidai recognized her acting talent, but was in no hurry to offer roles in his films. For the first time she starred with him in the film "Thrice Resurrected", but this work did not deserve all-Union popularity. Her first notable work in the film of her husband was the small role of the second doctor in "Prisoner of the Caucasus", although initially she was not in the script at all.

When Gaidai started filming "Prisoner of the Caucasus", Grebeshkova received a tempting offer from another director, but without hesitation refused it. The husband then developed a stomach ulcer, and she went with him to the shooting to prepare dietary soups and steam cutlets for him. Seeing what kind of care and attention his wife surrounded the director, his colleagues on the set began to shame him: how can you not find at least a tiny role for her in your film, because she is always there and is not busy with anything except cooking! And Gaidai succumbed to persuasion. Grebeshkova did not like this role - her heroine seemed to her too angry. But Nina's work impressed both the film crew and himself so much that since then he began to shoot her in almost all of his films. True, there were always other actresses in the lead roles, and she got only episodes!

Since then, the actress practically stopped acting for other directors, deliberately abandoning her own film career, which, perhaps, could have developed much more successfully. She herself never considered it a victim and repeatedly repeated that her best role was Gaidai's wife. Even when her husband offered her roles in his films, the actress reluctantly agreed: "".

Her most notable work in Gaidai's film was the role of Semyon Gorbunkov's wife in The Diamond Hand. After reading the script, she categorically refused to play the too correct, pompous and insipid heroine. The image of the house manager seemed to her much more attractive, but the director was adamant. Then the actress began to refine the image that was too flat and schematic, as it seemed to her, and thanks to this she made Gorbunkov's wife not only memorable, but also very lively and understandable to the viewer. The director received letters in which the audience admired: ""

After the release of the film on the screens, Grebeshkova was immediately "married" to Yuri Nikulin - they looked very convincing on the screen as a married couple. And when the audience found out that in fact she was Gaidai's wife, she was stopped in the streets and shamed: how could such a talented artist be exchanged for a director!

Gaidai "spied" many of his characters and many scenes in films in his own life. His wife said: "". When Nina Grebeshkova drove Tatyana Peltzer to the bakery in her car, the phrase "" was born, which Gaidai later included in the comedy "The Diamond Arm". And once, during a dispute with her husband, Nina exclaimed: "". The director "presented" this phrase to the main character of the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession".

Nina Grebeshkova never considered herself an unclaimed actress - and after the death of her husband, she continued to appear in films and TV series. In addition, the actress said that she was very happy that she had lived all her life in a single marriage with a loved one. In her free time from filming, she gladly took up the dacha and devoted herself to caring for her daughter and granddaughter.

There are a lot of interesting moments left behind the scenes of "Prisoner of the Caucasus": Why Gaidai stopped working with Morgunov, and censorship banned the film for screening.