The famous Marina Ladynina lived a long life. She was a great actress, the Soviet people loved her very much, and many of her works received government awards of the highest rank. During her 95-year life, she knew the years of the highest glory and the time of complete oblivion.
The very beginning of a career
Marina Ladynina was born in 1908 in a peasant family in the village of Skotinino. The name is really unsympathetic, and the future actress in the documents changed the village of Skotinino to Nazarovo - the village where the family moved soon after the birth of Marina. The girl grew surprisingly pretty, smart and mobile. Later, Marina Alekseevna thought that from birth she wanted to become only an actress. The baby received her first flowers for theatrical activities at the age of six - she so talentedly played the Spring Fairy in a rural performance that the landowner gave her a rose from her own garden.
With a dream about the theater
Marina Ladynina learned to read very early, taught literacy to her younger sisters and brother (there were four children in the family), and all this time she either participated in various amateur performances, or simply danced, read poetry or sang, even on a rural square with visiting gypsies. She played the first big role in the school play (Natasha from Pushkin's “Mermaid”) so well that she received praise from her mother, who did not want to hear about her daughter’s acting future. After receiving secondary education, a talented girl began to work as a teacher, first in her native village, and then in Achinsk, where there was a drama theater, in which they began to invite Marina to replace the sick actresses. Some actors strongly advised the girl to learn theater skills.
First films
In 1929, Marina Ladynina went to Moscow on a Komsomol ticket to the Faculty of Social Sciences, and entered GITIS. Moreover, in the examination sheet opposite her last name, a note was made about her special talent. In 1932, she played a small role as a blind flower girl in the silent picture “You Cannot Enter the City”. After graduation, she was taken to the Moscow Art Theater, but Ladynina continued to act in films when she was invited.
In 1935, she played in the film Enemy Trails. On the set, the girl met and married actor Ivan Lyubeznov. The marriage soon broke up, but they remained good friends for life. She also starred in the film "Outpost at Devil's Ford", but the picture did not please the authorities, and it was banned, and then completely lost. It should be noted that Ladynina didn’t have a relationship with the authorities - either an Italian fan, or flatly refused to cooperate with the NKVD. As a result, “the future of the Moscow Art Theater,” as K. S. Stanislavsky called it, was fired from the theater. The following year was very difficult, the actress moonlighted as washing and cleaning.
Fateful meeting
But in 1936, Marina met with Ivan Pyryev. And her life is changing dramatically. This was an epoch-making man of her life, she was happy with him, received all-Union recognition with him, was awarded five Stalin Prizes and gave birth to a child. I. Pyryev was a difficult person and, probably, by and large, not very decent, both with women and with colleagues. But he loved Ladynin very much. True, it didn’t immediately go away from his wife (actress Ada Wojcieck) and son, and at first in every way he defended his beloved from the NKVD, which gradually turned the young actress into an anti-Stalinist - many knew how this could end. But his attempts would have yielded nothing if their first joint film, The Rich Bride, put on the shelf, had not been seen by Stalin. He liked the film, and that was all. Outcasts turned into popular favorites. Since then, no one has put a stick in the wheels of Pyryev, and only Marina Ladynina, whose biography in these years was full of successes, was shot in his films.
The first joint films that brought all-Union fame
The popularity of the next film exceeded all expectations. "Tractor drivers" entered the treasury of Soviet cinema. N. Kryuchkova and M. Ladynina were idolized, recognized on the streets, sent letters. True, the next film, shot to please Ladynina (since she did not want to play collective farmers until the end of her days), “Beloved Girl”, was unsuccessful. Ivan Pyryev again turned to his favorite genre of musical comedy and began filming the legendary film "Pig and Shepherd."
Legend film
The war caught the crew when they returned from Kabardino-Balkaria. At first, the troupe broke up - Zeldin was sent to a tank school, Pyryev volunteered for the front, but, again, Stalin, having familiarized himself with the idea of the film, decided that the actors would be more useful by completing the picture. Indeed, the film was taken along the fronts, it lifted the spirit of the fighters. The picture “Pig and Shepherd” was shot by a company of like-minded people, mutual understanding, creative enthusiasm and mutual respect reigned on the site.
War and post-war films
Ivan Pyryev was a director, completely devoted to the cause of life, not sparing either himself or others. Over the years of the war, the painting "Secretary of the Regional Committee" was shot. Marina Ladynina, whose filmography was replenished during this time with the comedy Antosha Rybkin, this time starred not with her husband, but with Konstantin Yudin. The next major success was the picture “At 6 o’clock in the evening after the war” - the most popular partner Ladynina in this film was the most popular Evgeny Samoilov. The film was a great success. However, in 1946, the picture in which Marina Ladynina ("Big Life") starred was criticized. All the actors and the director Leonid Lukov became disgraced, and I. Pyryev got it too - he was dismissed from the post of chief editor of the magazine “Art of Cinema” for placing footage from this film on the cover. But then Stalin invited him to him, which means he forgave him.
Another success
Immediately after the war, the film "The Legend of the Siberian Land" was set, confirming the unfading talent of the Pyryev-Ladynin tandem. In this picture, the actress plays an intelligent woman in beautiful clothes, her beautiful hair is visible - before that, in previous works, a cap was often flashed on the head of a beautiful woman. Filmed in the 50s, the film "Kuban Cossacks" became the pinnacle of Ladynina's popularity. The amazing adoration of this actress is evidenced by the fact that at the very beginning of Gorky Street on huge buildings hung two huge portraits - Stalin and Ladynina. People wrote letters to her with a request to take them to their collective farm. The song, which was performed by Marina Ladynina in this picture (“How you were ...”), is popular now.
Divorce
Ivan Pyryev left Ladynina immediately after the release of the painting “Test of Fidelity”. They lived together for 17 years. The director not only loved, but also respected this wonderful woman, who was called the "aristocrat of the spirit." And after marrying another actress, he did not give passage to his ex-wife, pursued her, asked for forgiveness and did not give anywhere to work or to act in films. It was a very difficult time for Marina, but she survived it, survived, traveled to a huge country with concerts until they were banned in 1993, depriving many celebrities of an elementary piece of bread. In the most difficult time, the great actress was supported by Naina Yeltsin.
The era died with her ...
But this strong woman considered herself a happy man. Marina Ladynina, whose children were limited to their only joint son Andrei, was left completely alone when he left after his divorce to his father. But then, when Ivan Pyryev died, the relationship developed between the mother and son, who became a popular director.
Marina Ladynina lived to see the wedding of her beloved grandson. The actress was remembered for her 90th birthday (1998) and handed her a “Nick” in the nomination “For Honor and Dignity”. Marina Ladynina died
on March 10, 2003. She was a kind, intelligent, talented person, all her life she was supported by true friends - Andrei Borisov, Mark Bernes,
Petr Glebov, Ivan Pereverziev and Nikolai Cherkasov. These people were the color of pre-war and post-war Soviet cinema.