The fatal role of Elsa Lezhdey: Why the star of the film "Connoisseurs lead the investigation" disappeared from the screens

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

18 years ago, on June 12, 2019, the popular Soviet actress Elsa Lezhdey died. All-Union fame was brought to her by the role of forensic expert Zina Kibrit in the series "The Investigation are Connoisseurs", but the same role put an end to her further film career. Why, at the peak of popularity, the actress had to leave the cinema - further in the review.

Elsa Lezhdey was born in 1933 in Sevastopol into a family far from the art world, but from childhood she dreamed of becoming an actress. After graduating from school, she went to conquer the capital's theater universities, and from the very first attempt she went through a competition to both Shchukinskoye and Schepkinskoye schools. Having successfully graduated from "The Sliver", Elsa Lezhdey became an actress of the Film Actor's Studio Theater.

Even in her last year of Slivers, Elsa began acting in films, and her very first role in the film Cold Sea brought her success: the famous actor Nikolai Kryuchkov spoke of her in the press as a promising young actress. In those same years, she married the director Vladimir Naumov, thanks to whom several more roles appeared in her filmography. Her husband treated her very reverently and attentively, which, according to her colleagues, often even interfered on the set. So, her partner in the film "Pavel Korchagin" Vasily Lanovoy said: "".

However, after parting with her husband-director, Elsa Lezhdey continued to act in films. True, none of her roles brought her such popularity as Zina Kibrit from the television series "Connoisseurs lead the investigation." The whole country froze at the screens when a new episode of the film was released. And the heroine Lezhdey enjoyed special sympathy both with the audience and with critics, who wrote: "".

The actress worked on this image together with the director and screenwriters. So, she strongly objected to the idea of prescribing a line of personal life for her heroine - she even came up with an affair with Znamensky, but this idea had to be abandoned. “”, - Elsa explained. In the script, this image was somewhat “dry”, and Lezhdey, according to colleagues, was able to “humanize” him, endowing her with her own features - elegance and feminine charm. In this role, she was so organic and so close to her that no one else imagined her in another role. Yes, she herself, after the series was closed in 1989, was at a loss, not knowing what to do next, and how to do without her heroine.

The role, which is called Elsa Lezhdey's calling card, became fatal for her: the directors believed that over the long years, when the series was released on screens (1971-1989), the audience was so accustomed to seeing the actress in the image of Zinochka Kibrit that in other films they were simply can't help but associate her with this role. And she was not offered new work. In the 1990s. the actress disappeared from the screens. Nevertheless, she never regretted playing in the cult series and did not consider herself an actress in one role.

This period became the most difficult in her life: her film career suddenly ended, in 1992 her second husband, actor Vsevolod Safonov, with whom they had been married for 20 years, died, the actress herself began to have serious health problems - she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She suffered greatly from lack of demand and loneliness, but none of her acquaintances knew about this - she closed herself in, stopped communicating with almost all friends and colleagues, rarely left her apartment. Only her son from his first marriage, Alexei, visited her. In recent years, Elsa Lezhdey lived on a modest pension and the help of the Screen Actors Guild.

Her colleagues on the cult series later regretted very much that they could not help her. Leonid Kanevsky admitted: "". And Evgeny Martynyuk added: "".

When in 1998 journalists called her to congratulate her on her 65th birthday, she said with tears: “”. On June 12, 2001 Elsa Lezhdey died of a heart attack.

Elsa Lezhdey's partners in the series also became hostages of their images: Behind the scenes of the film "Experts lead the investigation".