Great actors will forever remain in the memory of generations thanks to their ingenious skill and talent. It was this great and legendary, and also very sharp-witted, audience that Faina Ranevskaya, the people's artist of the USSR theater and cinema, remembered. What was the life of the “queen of the episode” - one of the most mysterious women of the 20th century, and where is Faina Ranevskaya buried? Details in this article.
Successful Jewish childhood
When I start writing my memoirs, then the phrases: “I was born in the family of a poor oilman ...”, nothing works out for me.
F. Ranevskaya
The biography and personal life of Ranevskaya Faina Georgievna was full of many events. Fanny Girshevna Feldman was born then in the family of a rich Jew in Taganrog in 1896.
They had their own house, and in addition to Fanny, the Feldman had three more children - three brothers (one of whom died as a baby) and Bella's sister. The Feldman family was patriarchal. Fanny’s mother was engaged only in raising children, and his father maintained a factory, traded in oil raw materials, had a shop, a lot of real estate and even acquired a steamboat.
However, the future actress did not feel happy in her childhood, as she suffered from stuttering. Fanny was a modest, shy and very lonely girl. So much so that she asked to transfer herself from school for girls to home schooling, as she suffered very much in the society of her healthier peers.
Home schooling soon brought its first fruits, and Fanny, who did not like to study, received an excellent education: she learned to sing, play the piano, she knew several foreign languages and even began to read bitterly to herself and out loud, completely forgetting about her speech defect.
Talent is self-doubt and excruciating dissatisfaction with oneself and one’s own shortcomings, which I have never seen in mediocrity.
F. Ranevskaya
At the age of 10, Fanny suddenly turned her attention to cinema and theater. The biggest imprint on the fate of the future legend of the theater scene was made by the performance seen at that age based on the play by A.P. Chekhov's “The Cherry Orchard”. Fanny immediately decided for herself to become an actress.
Moreover, it was theatrical, as this art captured a completely young girl.
It is interesting! Even later, being already a middle-aged and well-known actress, Faina Ranevskaya talked about her work in the movie with some contempt: "Money is over, but shame remains." However, the mass audience remembers precisely her vivid episodic movie roles, for example, in the film “Foundling”, where Faina played a very eccentric mother.
After Fanny decided on a profession, she successfully passed the exams as an external student and began studying in a theater studio. The Feldman family met the news dryly, if not hostile. That is why Fanny left in 1915 to conquer theatrical Moscow.
How was the nickname of a famous actress born?
Her father, Hirsch Haimovich Feldman, did not communicate with Fanny for a long time after leaving and completely deprived her of financial assistance. Softer was the mother, Milka Rafailovna, who gave her daughter a little money for the first time. She rented a room on them and began to break through in the hard profession of an actress, upholstering the thresholds of the famous theatrical stage.
But Fanny Feldman did not notice anywhere ...
The young girl decided to take the pseudonym after one day, having left the post office with a friend, she came under a strong gust of wind that pulled out of her hands a tiny amount of money sent by her mother. Fanny just looked gloomily after them and said: "Wow, money is flying away quickly." To which her friend remarked that she was a real Ranevskaya from a Chekhov play. Fanny grinned and agreed that they were much alike.
Since then, Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya, the future star of theater and cinema, was born.
Theatrical successes
I do not recognize the word "play." You can play cards, horse racing, checkers. You need to live on stage.
F. Ranevskaya
After arriving in Moscow, Faina was out of work - she was not taken to any theater school. There was only one way out - to go to a private theater school, but the young revolutionary and rebel did not have money for this. The artist Geltser did not give the abyss to the future talented “queen of the episode”. She saw Faina’s samples and arranged her for the Malakhov Summer Theater, which is located in the Moscow Region.
At this time, Faina revolved in the circles of famous bohemian youth. She was familiar with Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Akhmatova and even Mayakovsky. All of them were already very famous, and almost legendary personalities. Faina was already surrounded by great actors then: her first unrequited love - Vasily Kachalov, Sadovskaya, Petipa and Pevtsova.
Faina watched them, took over the skill, playing in extras and dreaming of the main roles.
After the closing of the summer theater season, Faina worked in different cities:
- Kerch.
- Kislovodsk.
- Theodosius.
- Baku.
- Rostov.
- Smolensk.
On these stages Ranevskaya was already noticed and, at last, appreciated, having offered her a place in the capital's “Theater of the actor”. Faina finally lost touch with her parents in 1917, when they emigrated.
Famous Theatrical Roles
For the actress, there is no inconvenience if it is necessary for the role.
F. Ranevskaya
The very first theatrical role of Ranevskaya was Margarita in the play "Roman". Best known to lovers of theatrical art, her roles in the following performances:
- “The Cherry Orchard” is the role of Charlotte.
- "Pathetic Sonata." Faina played this performance already at the Chamber Theater, distinguishing herself in one of the main roles.
- "Vassa Zheleznova" - one of the most successful Ranevskaya experiments already in the Mossovet Theater. Faina also plays a major role in this performance, bringing her ideas to the director’s script. Already then, in the 50s, well-aimed quotes by Faina Ranevskaya glorified a talented artist.
- In the Moscow City Council, Ranevskaya played her most notable roles - Lucy Cooper (“Silence Next”), Mrs. Savage (“Strange Mrs. Savage”), Manka-speculator in the play “Storm” and many others. The spectators generally applauded while standing up to the speculator, not knowing that the whole role was not invented by the director himself, but completely rewritten by Faina herself. She played it so brightly that she overshadowed even the leading actors.
- "The law of honor." This performance Faina played already in the war years at the Tashkent Drama Theater, where the actors of the Moscow City Council were evacuated. Her wife Loseva turned out to be so convincing that after this role in the theater, the actress began to be invited to the cinema for a similar role.
- “The Player”, “Trees Die While Standing” and “Obscurantists” are Ranevskaya’s performances already at the A. Pushkin Moscow Drama Theater, where the artist played until her death. At this theater they even installed a sign that reflects the years of Faina Ranevskaya’s life - 1896-1984.
Famous movie roles
Do you know what it is to act in films? Imagine that you are washing in a bathhouse, and there they will lead an excursion.
F. Ranevskaya
After the debut on the stage, Faina Ranevskaya was invited to the cinema. And in her filmography there are almost no main movie roles. The film images that glorified Ranevskaya throughout the Soviet Union, as a rule, are laconic. This role is not even a second, but a third plan. However, even Faina could make them stellar. Colleagues, and the audience called Ranevskaya "the queen of the episode."
The most famous episodic images, as well as films with Faina Ranevskaya in the title role:
- Mrs. Loisot (The Bun, 1934).
- Caught ("The Duma of the Cossack Golgotha", 1937).
- Ida Gurevich (“The mistake of the engineer Cochin”, 1939).
- Lyalya (“Foundling”, 1939) is the most famous role of Ranevskaya and the heroine’s phrase that has glorified her for centuries: “Mule, don’t make me nervous!”
- Manya, aunt Dobryakoa, employee of the hospital (“Beloved Girl”, 1940).
- Rosa Skorohod (The Dream, 1941).
- Gorpina (“How Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”, 1941).
- Aunt Adele ("New Adventures of Schweik", 1943).
- Professor of Medicine ("Heavenly Slow-moving", 1945).
- Stepmother (Cinderella, 1947).
- Zoya Sviristinskaya (Girl with a Guitar, 1958).
- Grandmother ("Caution, Grandmother!", 1960).
- Ada Brand - director of the circus ("Today is a new attraction", 1966).
In addition, Faina Ranevskaya participated in the filming of the famous comedy magazine "Wick", and also voiced the most famous and economic nanny of all time - Freken Bock in the cartoon "The Kid and Carlson."
last years of life
The cause of Faina Ranevskaya’s death was pneumonia, which her body could not tolerate after an extensive heart attack. At the end of her life, Faina Georgievna did not play in the theater, since, according to her, she was tired of "pretending to be healthy." She ended her creative life in 1963, and lived with her sister Bella and the dog Boy.
Where is Faina Ranevskaya buried?
Before her death, the famous actress even bequeathed to knock out the inscription on her tombstone: "She died of disgust." The grave of Faina Ranevskaya at the Don cemetery is a rather popular place. Around there are always flowers from fans and admirers of her talent. Such an eccentric epitaph about the “disgusting life” was not accepted, and the place where Faina Ranevskaya is buried is only brightened up by the small bronze dog Boy - the beloved dog of the actress.
Personal life
Quotes by Faina Ranevskaya glorified her not only among her colleagues, but also among ordinary people. She was not only sharp enough in her statements, but also an amazingly wise woman, sometimes shocking, and sometimes immediately falling in love with herself with the help of powerful charisma.
What is the case with the director in one of the theaters, who burst into her dressing room, trying to scandal about the role, and froze on the threshold. Ranevskaya was completely naked and smoked a cigarette. Completely noticing the shock that she caused to her colleague, Ranevskaya asked: "Does it bother you that I smoke?"
However, the many novels that were attributed to the great actress did not bring the Ranev family and children. She was never married, not wanting to enter into a relationship that would then bring pain. It began after the incident with one famous actor, in which then young Fanny was in love. He came to her house with a girlfriend, and asked Ranevskaya, who was in love, to “walk”. However, Faina was not alone. She had many friends, and her beloved sister, Bella, who lived with her.
Aphorisms of the actress
All quotes of the great actress have long been aphorisms, and now they are gaining more and more popularity. They contain not only wisdom, but the sharp mind of this legendary woman.
The most famous of them:
- Lesbianism, homosexuality, masochism, sadism - this is not a perversion. In fact, there are only two perversions: field hockey and ice ballet.
- Women, of course, are smarter. Have you ever heard of a woman who would lose her head just because a man has beautiful legs?
- It is better to be a good person, "swearing obscene" than a quiet, well-educated creature.
- I’m watching this film for the fourth time and I must tell you that today the actors played like never before.
- Wee in the tram - everything he did in art.
- I get letters: "Help me become an actor." I answer: "God will help!"
- Everything pleasant in this world is either harmful, or immoral, or leads to obesity.
- Why are all fools such women?
- We were accustomed to single-celled words, scanty thoughts, play after that Ostrovsky!
- All my life I swam in the toilet with a butterfly style.
F. Ranevskaya
“In order to get recognition, one must even die,” - this phrase also belongs to the legendary actress. The universal recognition of her talent was enough during her lifetime, but each of her fans still knows where Faina Ranevskaya is buried, and where she can come to pay her last tribute to her great skill.