Video: American everyday life of a Russian actress: how was the fate of Elena Solovey in exile
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
After filming three films by Nikita Mikhalkov Elena Solovey became one of the most popular and sought-after actresses in the USSR in the 1970-1980s. Therefore, it came as a complete surprise to many when in 1991 she and her husband emigrated to the United States. Despite the fact that there could be no question of continuing her film career, Elena Solovey never regretted her choice and found something to her liking.
Her triumph in cinema was the role in Nikita Mikhalkov's film "Slave of Love" (1975). She was so convincing in the role of an exalted, a little “out of this world” actress that many people still associate and identify her with this heroine. Although she was a "slave to love" only when, choosing between family and career, she preferred the former, which happens very rarely in the acting environment.
The first time Elena Solovey sacrificed her professional prospects back in 1970, when, after graduating from VGIK, she was invited to join the troupe of the Maly Theater. But she got married and, unexpectedly for everyone, decided to move to her husband in Leningrad. Since then, they have not parted. She managed to combine work and the birth and upbringing of children. Her husband went with her to the shooting and helped with the children.
Her most famous works were roles in the films "Vanyushin's Children", "Seven Brides of Corporal Zbruev", "You Never Dreamed of …", "Look for a Woman", and Mikhalkov's films "Slave of Love", "Unfinished Play for Mechanical piano "and" A few days from the life of I. I. Oblomov. " In the late 1980s. there were fewer and fewer offers, and in 1991 she and her husband decided to leave for the United States. She explained her motives as follows: “I left the country for one reason - I did not see a future for my children in Russia. And I never regretted it. Since my children, and now my grandchildren, feel good in America, why should it be bad for me? No, there was no nostalgia. There was a longing for the people with whom I found myself on different shores of the ocean”.
Her husband, artist Yuri Pugach, found work in the United States almost immediately. At first he worked as an artist-designer in a jewelry store, and then got a job in an art gallery. Elena Nightingale had no illusions about the conquest of Hollywood - she did not build such plans initially. The actress took care of the house and children and began to call herself an American housewife. But she did not stay idle for a long time.
Soon, the actress got a job on a Russian-language radio in New Jersey - she read excerpts from the works of Russian classics, played in the theater of Alexander Zhurbin. And later she performed several cameo roles in the films of the American director of Russian origin James Gray. In the United States, there was something to their liking - Elena Solovey taught in a theater studio for children of immigrants from Russia.
When asked if she regrets her choice, the actress answers unequivocally: “I am happy - otherwise I would not have lived there. I live with feelings and sensations, my family is important to me. I don't quite understand when they say: she is a woman - a mother, she devoted her life to children. I did not devote anything to anyone, this is my life and my world. I might not have become an actress, but even in this case, I would still be happy if my children, my husband and everything would be all right. That would be enough for me. I have a lot of respect for women who know how to make a career, although I myself do not know how. In America, I didn't have any ambitions. But when a few years ago I was interviewed and asked if they were calling me to act in Hollywood, I replied - no, nobody needs me there, that's why they don't call me. I just live in the USA”.
Now the actress is 70 years old and she believes that she used all the chances that fell to her: she was successfully realized both in her career and in her personal life.
Elena Solovey was not the only one of Soviet Actors in Hollywood: Was Success Possible on the Other Side of the Iron Curtain?
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