Lydia Sukharevskaya - Soviet theater and film actress, screenwriter. Known for her diverse roles of women with complex characters or some oddities. For her creative achievements, she is the owner of the Stalin Prize of the first degree and the title of People's Artist of the USSR. Biography, creative path and personal life of Lydia Sukharevskaya - more on this later in the article.
early years
Lidia Petrovna Sukharevskaya was born on August 17, 1909 in the village of Popovkino, Vologda province. It is curious that Lydia’s father was called Pavel, but at the beginning of her acting career she changed her middle name to “Petrovna”, believing that “Pavlovna” resembles a “stick” and sounds inappropriate for the artist. When Lida was seven years old, the family moved to Gryazovets. The main hobbies of the girl were reading and needlework - at 11 years old she went to a school circle of cutting and sewing. It turned out that almost all the girls from this group also attended a drama group - Lida, who had not thought about acting before, also went there with them. However, the very first classes so captured her that sewing and other needlework were forgotten, now she saw in front of her only one goal - the stage.
In 1924, Lida's father died, she moved to Leningrad with her mother and grandmother. During the summer holidays, 15-year-old Lida worked as a handyman, an assistant in a sewing studio, and a manicurist in a hairdressing salon. At the Leningrad school, the girl also went to a drama circle.
Early work
In 1927, after graduation, Lydia became a student at the First State Acting Studio. She knew that her family could not pay for training, and went to the audition simply out of interest. But the talented entrant liked the admissions committee so much that they wrote down the payment of her studies at the expense of household expenses. During her training, aspiring actress Lydia Sukharevskaya appeared on the stage in the images of Lady Anna (Richard the Third, Shakespeare), Lucille (Tradesman in the Nobility, Moliere) and Maria Stuart in the play of the same name by Schiller, already demonstrating the ability to play completely different heroines.
After graduating from the studio in 1930, Lidia Petrovna managed to work on the stages of the Agitation Theater, LenTRAM and the Theater of the Radio Committee. In 1933, she received an invitation to the Comedy Theater, where she finally found her place, having worked there for 11 years. The first role on the stage of the Comedy Theater for Lydia Sukharevskaya was Tanya - in the play "Road of Flowers" based on the play by Valentin Kataev.
Movie debut
In 1939, Lidia Sukharevskaya first tried her hand at cinema, playing the comedic noble daughter of Belyandryasa Petrovna in “Vasilisa the Beautiful” by Alexander Rowe. The comedic talent of the actress showed up in this role in full, and in 1941 she was invited to a similar role as the “grotesque woman” - she played the barmaid Vera in the film “Tanker Derbent”, clumsy, naive, at the same time funny and sad.
War years
In 1942, the actress, along with the theater, was evacuated to Stalinabad (modern Dushanbe, Tajikistan). There she continued to play on stage and act in films, for which in 1943 she was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Tajik SSR. In the same year, two films were released with Lidia Sukharevskaya - “Lermontov” and “We are from the Urals”, shot by Soyuzdetfilm studio, which was also evacuated in Stalinabad.
In 1944, the Comedy Theater returned from evacuation, and Lidia Petrovna decided to leave him, as she was pregnant. She managed to star in Mikhail Romm's film "Man Number 217" and for some time left the acting.
The beginning of Moscow creativity
In 1946, Lidia Sukharevskaya simultaneously returned to the cinema and to the stage. She moved to Moscow and became an actress of three theaters at once - named after Mayakovsky, Film actor and Satire. In the same year, a film with her participation called "Sons" was released.
By the end of the forties, the actress managed to star in four films, while playing in four performances of the Cinema Actor Theater, one of the Satire Theater and three more in Mayakovka. Among the outstanding stage roles of that time are Gedda Gabler and Sofia Kovalevskaya in the performances of the same name.
The fifties were marked for the actress by a more dense work in the cinema - at that time she played several outstanding roles, including Nadezhda Nikolaevna Rimskaya-Korsakova in the biographical film about the composer of 1952, Anna Ivanovna in the comedy "She Loves You" (1956), Raisa Peterson in the historical drama "The Duel" (1957), secretary Valentina Ivanovna in the production drama "Rains" (1958).
"Life first"
In 1960, Lidia Petrovna decided to try her hand as a screenwriter and wrote the play "Bearing in Itself", based on which the performance was staged on the stage of the Cinema Actor Theater. Sukharevskaya wrote the main role for herself and, as planned, played it on the stage. The plot of the play tells about the fate of frontline friends who find it very difficult to recover and start living anew after the war. In 1961, the script became the basis for the film "Life First". As in the play, the actress played the main role in this picture. Critics and colleagues praised the writing talent of Lydia Sukharevskaya, which until then had not manifested itself. Later, she wrote two more scripts - for the performances "Bearing in himself" and "At the ball of good luck."
The name of the film seemed to be the motto for the further work of the actress. In 1963, she left the stage of the Mayakovsky, Satire and Kinoakter theaters, moving to the theater on Malaya Bronnaya. Here Lidia Petrovna for the first time played relatively age-related roles, such as Klara Tsekhanasyan in the play “Visit of the Old Lady” and Mother in the production of the same name. Her directorial debut also took place on this stage - together with Elena Yakushkina, she staged a biographical performance about the life of Edith Piaf, entitled "At the Ball of Good Luck," playing the role of the famous singer.
Late work
In 1974, Lidia Sukharevskaya returned to the Mayakovsky Theater, where she has since played until the end of her life. In 1975, the premiere of the play "Old-Fashioned Comedy" took place, in which the actress played the role of Lydia Gerber. Her performance was recognized as the best, despite the fact that in the second composition Gerber was performed by the great Alice Freindlich.
In the same year, a television version of the play was released, where Sukharevskaya played the same role. The popularity of the production and letters from the audience asking them to broadcast this performance again restored the lost status of Lydia Petrovna as a talented film actress, and in 1976 she played the main role in another television play, “How Important It Is to Be Serious,” based on the play by Oscar Wilde.
The last movie work for the actress was the role of a Frenchwoman of Russian origin Elizabeth Maximovna in the 1981 film "One-Chauffeur Drive." Lidia Petrovna’s partners on the set were Oleg Efremov and Lidia Fedoseeva-Shukshina.
Personal life
Lidia Petrovna married Boris Tenin, a stage colleague at the Leningrad Comedy Theater, in 1935. She was 26 years old, he was 30, for her it was the first marriage, and for Tenin - the third. But for both - the first and last love, because since then the couple have never parted, having composed many famous duets - both on stage and on screen. Together they were evacuated, together they decided to leave the Comedy Theater and move to Moscow. Were there children in the personal lives of Lydia Sukharevskaya and Boris Tenin? In 1945, the son Mikhail was born to the spouses. Lidia Sukharevskaya could not have more children - the late pregnancy affected. Spouses Lidia Petrovna and Boris Mikhailovich in the photo below.
In 1946, they together became actors of the Mayakovsky Theater, where in 1975 they composed their most successful duet in the production of "Old-Fashioned Comedy". In addition, the couple-actors appeared in the performances "Road to New York", "Shadow" (Leningrad Comedy Theater), "Sophia Kovalevskaya" (Cinema Actor Theater), "House where hearts are broken" (Satire Theater), "Mother "," Golden Carriage "," Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station "," Visit of the Old Lady "(Mayakovsky Theater). They also appeared together in the films Lermontov, For Power of the Soviets, Duel, and others.
Lidia Petrovna and Boris Mikhailovich lived in a happy marriage for 55 years - they were separated by the death of Tenin in September 1990. Without her beloved husband, Sukharevskaya, who remained a fairly youthful woman even at the age of eighty, somehow suddenly grew old, faded and lost interest in both the stage and life. Without Boris, she could only live a year.
Death
The actress died on October 11, 1991. She died in a dream in her Moscow apartment. Since she was not ill with anything, relatives came to the conclusion that she died of grief and longing for her husband. She was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery, in the same grave with Boris Tenin.
Until recently, the grave of the actors was in terrible desolation, which caused a negative reaction from fans of their work. The biography of the son of Sukharevskaya and Tenin is unknown, and therefore, representatives of the directorate of the Mayakovsky Theater took up the matter. In 2013, they erected a new monument, honoring the memory of the actors.