Why actress Dodo Chogovadze, who played Princess Budur, preferred the loneliness of family life

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

Actress Dodo Chogovadze starred in only a few films, but the audience remembered the role of the amazing princess Budur in Aladdin's Magic Lamp. The 15-year-old oriental beauty, after the release of the fairy tale on the screens, became a real celebrity: fans wrote letters to her, men offered her a hand and a heart … But she married much later to her colleague in the theater, after a divorce from whom she preferred the loneliness of family life.

Childhood on the set

Little Dodo, born in Tbilisi, in the family of the agronomist Alexander Chogovadze, loved to dance from childhood. That is why she found herself first at the choreographic school, and then on the set. At the age of five, the girl first appeared in a movie, playing a tiny role in the film "Manana". She played a little actress in a school play. The shot, where a cap slips from the head of a fragile baby with a glued mustache, and under it there is a huge nylon bow, turned out to be extremely successful and funny.

Dodo Chogovadze was often invited to small roles in films, and five years after her premiere, the girl had already played the main role in the film "The Little Knights". After she was noticed by Stanislav Rostotsky's assistant and invited to audition for the role of Bela in the film "A Hero of Our Time". But the director, having learned the age of Dodo (she was 13 then), abandoned the idea of filming a teenage girl.

But the photographs left after the screenings in the filing cabinet of the Gorky Film Studio did their job. A year later, Dodo Chogovadze was summoned to audition and approved for the role of Princess Budur in Boris Rytsarev's movie fairy tale "Aladdin's Magic Lamp". True, the girl's mother, during a conversation with the director, added one year to her daughter, saying that she would soon turn 16. Mom accompanied Dodo during the filming and even received a salary at the film studio.

The first love

During the work on the film, the young Dodo was helped by the entire film crew. She was looked after and supported by everyone, from the personal make-up artist Louise Machilskaya to the director Boris Rytsarev. When the girl fell from the high gate, filming was stopped and not resumed until the doctor examined the young actress, and the director decided on a stunt double for Dodo.

The movie was supposed to be filmed within three summer months, but they did not have time. And in September, the schoolgirl actress began to attend classes at an evening school in Yalta. The lead actor Boris Bystrov took the girl to class and accompanied her back. He defended his young colleague all the time, asked Dodo's mother not to be angry with her daughter for little offenses. Subsequently, the actress always remembered Bystrov with warmth and love, never ceasing to be amazed at his human qualities and kindness.

However, it was not Boris Bystrov at all that became the subject of love for the 15-year-old actress. She sympathized with Konstantin Zagorsky, a costume designer, but at the same time admitted: her feeling was platonic, no one even tried to care for a young girl, and even in the presence of her mother.

Although one already adult and accomplished man asked Dodo's mother for her daughter's hand. True, he was married, but promised to divorce. But the girl, when her mother told her about the offer, categorically refused. She still does not name this person. He himself has long been dead, but his wife remained, whom the actress does not want to injure with her revelations.

After filming, Dodo returned to the choreographic school. Fame did not affect her relationship with classmates, but some teachers ironically called the student a Hollywood star. She received thousands of letters, men declared their love to her, but the young actress met her love much later, when she had already gone to work at the Paliashvili Opera and Ballet Theater.

Broken happiness

David Shushanin served with Dodo Chogovadze in the same theater, he was a musician and singer. Young people approached during the tour, on his return from which David proposed to Dodo. They played a merry wedding, and then went on a honeymoon trip to Moscow, where the aunt of the bride lived.

But family life turned out to be very far from Dodo's idea of happiness. Her husband turned out to be an incredibly jealous person. Her husband's displeasure was caused by the actress's trips to her parents, he did not want to share his wife even with his mother, he was offended and could not talk with his wife for hours.

Seeing how the wife, who played Ophelia, was hugged on stage by the actor in the guise of Hamlet, staged crazy scenes, accused Dodo of infidelity. It seemed to him that the actress was looking at her colleagues with loving eyes. Soon he even demanded from his wife that she quit the theater and stay at home, run the household, raise her daughter Nino. They lived with David's relatives, and Dodo, no matter how hard she tried, always remained to blame for everything. However, the mother-in-law immediately told her: under any conditions she will be on the side of her son.

At first, Dodo tried to talk with her husband, explain and prove something. But all her attempts to save the family were broken by jealousy and misunderstanding. In the end, she was just tired. And she left her husband. But their relationship lasted another 10 years. He came to his wife's parents, where Dodo lived, took her away, brought her and was sure that this would always continue. Even having married a second time, David Shushanin decided not to leave his ex-wife with his attention. And he was incredibly surprised when she broke up with him.

Happy loneliness

Dodo Chogovadze could have married a second time, she had a lot of fans, and she was repeatedly offered marriage proposals. But she refused everyone, because she was afraid to again find herself in the role of a slave, who is forbidden by everything, is not allowed anywhere and throw up scandals for the slightest reason. But in each of the applicants for husbands, she again and again saw a jealous and oppressive husband who constantly tried to limit her freedom.

Unfortunately, the daughter of the actress Nino could not arrange her personal life. She became a pianist, but after retraining as a child psychologist and began to help children in difficult life situations. She often works in African countries and is also afraid of losing her freedom, like a mother.

After filming "Aladdin's Magic Lamp", Dodo Chogovadze appeared in the cinema only once, in the film "Night Witches", and now the actress teaches rhythm and dance at the theater university. But she doesn't feel satisfied. Dodo Chogovadze dreams of finding himself again in the magical atmosphere of the set and playing a good role.

More than one generation of viewers grew up on the movie fairy tale "Aladdin's Magic Lamp", for sure many of them still remember the main character, Princess Budur, who was distinguished by her refined and refined beauty. At the age of 30, Dodo Chogovadze played her last role and disappeared from the screens forever.