Zigzags of Inna Ulyanova's fate: single starring role, French romance and death alone

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

June 30 could have turned 84 years old actress of theater and cinema Inna Ulyanova, but for 13 years now she has not been among the living. Most viewers remember her for the role of Margarita Hobotova in the film "The Pokrovsky Gate", which became her most notable film role. She was very talented, but realized her creative potential only by a third, she was very charming and sociable, but spent the last years in complete solitude …

Inna Ulyanova has dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood, since the time when their family moved from the Ukrainian Gorlovka to Moscow and settled in the house of the Council of Ministers, where filmmakers occupied three entrances. Every day she saw Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova, Ivan Pyriev and Marina Ladynina. And after school I firmly decided to enter the "Pike".

True, they did not immediately believe in her talent at the school: at the entrance exams she managed to attract attention to herself, however, she puzzled more than pleased the examiners. Later, with her usual humor, Ulyanova told: "". She was accepted on one condition: if within six months she does not show her talent, she will be expelled.

They doubted her in vain. Inna Ulyanova successfully completed her studies and was accepted into the troupe of the Leningrad State Comedy Theater. She was equally good at any role - both lyrical heroines and comedic images. But still, it was in comedies that the actress was like a fish in water. The director of the theater Nikolai Akimov drew attention to this, who told her: "".

She never considered herself a beauty and was worried about her appearance. Nevertheless, Ulyanova was so charming that she easily fell in love with both the audience and the men. She was officially married only once, but this marriage did not last long. And once fate brought her together with a French pilot. Their romance lasted 4 years, but Ulyanova did not dare to move to France. The actress remembered this person with special warmth: "".

In the theater, Ulyanova got diverse roles. Director Sergei Artsibashev, with whom she worked more than once, said about her: "". But in the cinema, she did not realize her creative potential even half - she got mostly episodes, although in her performance they became masterpieces. Such was the drunken lady with the fox, who appeared in the frame for just a few minutes in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring". She uttered the phrase by which she was remembered: "".

Inna Ulyanova's visiting card and her only starring role was Margarita Khobotova in the film "Pokrovskie Vorota", which she played at the age of 48. The actress always remembered this work with pleasure: "".

Despite the incredible success of "The Pokrovsky Gate", after that Inna Ulyanova did not receive worthy proposals from the directors, and she had to play in episodes again. And when in the 1990s. she starred in the image of Margarita Hobotova in an advertisement for a detergent, many reproached her for commercialism, although even in a commercial she was incomparable. Ulyanova answered all the accusations: "".

Inna Ulyanova never created a family and did not give birth to children, which, according to her, she never regretted - she admitted that she had been a loner by nature all her life and devoted all her strength to the acting profession. "" - she said about herself. In public, she always looked like a cheerful optimist, although many of her acquaintances believed that it was just a mask behind which the real tragedy of loneliness was hidden.

In the last years of her life, the actress was left all alone. In the 2000s. roles in the cinema were almost not offered, and oblivion from loneliness and lack of demand Ulyanova began to look for alcohol. The actress stopped communicating with all her acquaintances and often went into binges. On June 9, 2005, she died of cirrhosis of the liver, several weeks before her 71st birthday.

Despite the fact that the actress played a few roles in the cinema, and Margarita Hobotova alone is enough for her name to remain forever in the history of cinema. Behind the scenes of "Pokrovskie gates": Why critics predicted the film failure.