It is difficult to imagine another actor or actress, whose every word - by role or in the course of life - immediately became an aphorism. The life and biography of Ranevskaya Faina Georgievna is one big quote.
Start
The great actress was born on August 27 (15), 1896 in Taganrog in a simple Jewish family of petty bourgeois Feldman. In addition to Fanny, the couple had three more children - two sons and a daughter. She did not expect any other way besides the acting one: she was fond of theater since childhood, graduated from the Taganrog gymnasium for women, then studied in a private theater studio. And at 18, she was already in Moscow, renting a room in a communal apartment on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. She was not accepted into any theater studio. Good friends helped to play cameo roles in extras. There was nothing to pay for tuition at a private theater school. It was the year 1915.
Acting Debuts
The biography of Ranevskaya-actress was not an easy one, she had to fight for her place in the sun for a very long time. In Moscow, she did not succeed, she signed a contract with the acting troupe of Madame Lavrovskaya and left for Kerch. After wandered around the provincial theaters - in Rostov, Smolensk, Kislovodsk, Arkhangelsk, Baku, in the suburbs. And only then, already in 1930, in Moscow - in the Chamber, in the drama theater (now named after Mayakovsky), named after Pushkin, Moscow City Council, the years of her work in which remained in history and in jokes due to legendary conflicts with director Yuri Zavadsky. They had a different vision of the theater, and indeed, the peculiar tragicomic style of the actress sometimes shocked the director. But I had to put up - this was all Faina Ranevskaya. Biography, quotes from her roles were already in the public domain. It was well known that her addiction to a sharp word, sometimes unprintable. Perhaps many of the prevailing winged expressions are attributed to her. But her wit and tendency to parody were clearly manifested in life, and on the stage, and even in the literary genre. Many are familiar with her parody letters in which Faina Georgievna imitated the famous writer T. Tess under the pseudonym of the provincial Kafinkin. Irony is a great gift that the actress was fully endowed with.
Faina Ranevskaya: biography in the movie
It is amazing how great artistic talent can manifest itself without a single major role in its entire career. Yes, Ranevskaya remained for life a supporting actress. But her appearance in episodic roles promised success to any film. Serious roles were not offered to her, not by lack of talent, but by direction from above. The minister of cinematography at that time was a certain Bolshakov, whom few remember now. And he didn’t even “type” it in words, but in words: the Semitic features of the actress are too noticeable to make close-ups with her. Nonetheless, Ranevskaya’s biography was forever connected with Soviet cinema. Paradoxically, it was this British actress who did not play a single role from the world repertoire that the British Encyclopedia entered on the list of the greatest actors of the twentieth century.
In 1934, she made her film debut, it was the picture “Donut” (directed by Mikhail Romm). She acted reluctantly, preferring the theatrical scene. But then there were more films: “The mistake of the engineer Cochin”, “The Duma about the Cossack Golota” and many others. Faina Georgievna called the role of Mrs. Skorokhod in M. Romm’s film “Dream” (1940) her favorite role. This was followed by the film-musical "Wedding", where she starred in the bright role of Mother, the role of stepmother in "Cinderella" and many, many more star characters. But her play in the comedy film “Foundling” was the most memorable. Her famous phrase "Mule, do not make me nervous" still walks around the world. Or this one: “And what do you want more, girl: to go to the cottage, or to get your head torn off?” Needless to say, every word, like the entire biography of Ranevskaya, is worthy of daily quotation and admiration. And even resembling the phrases dropped by her entered the history of cinema. They say that the aged actress somehow fell on the street and could not get up. And then she said to passers-by: “Well, lift me up, folk artists do not lie on the road!”
Life and loneliness
Faina Ranevskaya never had a personal life. She never got married. Her family emigrated during the years of the revolution. Of the Friedman, she was lucky to see again only her sister Bella, who had come home to die. It was only in this short time that Ranevskaya was not alone with her sick relative. By the way, she changed her surname back in 1915, when she first saw Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard" in Moscow. Since then it has become Ranevskaya.
Faina Georgievna passed away in 1984. A year before her death, she refused to play, citing old age and illness.
A monument to the actress was erected in Taganrog as a token of gratitude to her great countrywoman.