Anna Sten
| Anna Sten | |
|---|---|
Anna Sten publicity photo, 1934
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| Born |
Anna Petrovna Fesak December 3, 1908 Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | November 12, 1993 (aged 84) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1926–64 |
| Spouse(s) | Boris Sten (Bernstein) Fedor Ozep (1927–1931) Eugene Frenke (1932–1984) |
Anna Sten (Ukrainian: Анна Стен; December 3, 1908 – November 12, 1993) was a Ukrainian-born American actress. She began her career in stage plays and films in Russia before travelling to Germany, where she starred in several films. Her performances were noticed by film producer Samuel Goldwyn, who brought her to the United States with the aim of creating a new screen personality to rival the popular Greta Garbo. After a few unsuccessful films, Goldwyn released her from her contract. She continued to act occasionally until her final film appearance in 1962.
Anna Petrovna Fesak was born December 3, 1908 in Kiev. There are other conflicting dates of birth: 1910 and 1906 from self-written dates in application forms from college. Also Anna's mother, Alexandra Fesak (Fissakova), listed Anna's birthdate as October 29, 1906 on her arrival in the United States. According to the official biography, her father was born into a Cossack family, worked as a theater artist and producer. Her mother was a Swede by birth and was a ballerina. In Kiev in the middle of the 1920s she married entertainer and variety actor Boris Sten (Bernstein), and took his stage name as her own.
In most foreign sources her maiden names are Stenska and Sudakevich, or a combination thereof (such as a common variant Anel (Anyushka) Stenska-Sudakevich, Annel (Anjuschka) Stenskaja Sudakewitsch), which is why Anna Sten is often mistakenly identified with the Russian actress Anel Sudakevich who starred in Soviet cinema at the same time and with some of the same directors as Anna Sten. The actresses have often been confused for one another.
Sten received her education at Kyiv State Theatre College, worked as a reporter and simultaneously played in Kiev Maly Theater, attended classes at the studio theater where she worked within the Stanislavsky System. In 1926 Sten successfully passed exams in the first working Proletcult theater in Moscow.
In 1926, after completing her studies at Kyiv theater school, Sten was invited by Ukrainian film director Viktor Turin to appear in his film Provokator, based on the book by Ukrainian writer Oles Dosvitnyi. Sten was discovered by influential Russian stage director and instructor Konstantin Stanislavsky, who arranged an audition for her at the Moscow Film Academy. Sten went on to act in other plays and films in Ukraine and Russia, including Boris Barnet's 1927 comedy The Girl with a Hatbox. She and her husband, Russian film director Fedor Ozep, traveled to Germany to appear in a film co-produced by German and Soviet studios, The Yellow Ticket. After the film was completed, Anna Sten and her husband decided not to return to the Soviet Union.
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