Lyudmila Kasatkina

Lyudmila Ivanovna Kasatkina (Russian: Людмила Ивановна Касаткина; May 15, 1925 – February 22, 2012) was a Russian actress who starred in a string of war-related films directed by her husband Sergey Kolosov.

She was born in a village near Vyazma and attended a ballet school. After having her leg broken at the age of 14 she gave up dancing and joined the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts. Kasatkina joined the troupe of the Red Army Theatre in 1947 and worked there for the rest of her life.

Kasatkina's breakthrough film role was a tiger tamer in Tiger Girl (1954) where she was doubled by Margarita Nazarova, a professionally trained tiger handler. She also appeared in such film adaptations as The Taming of the Shrew (1961) and The Darling (1966, after Chekhov).

Kasatkina was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1975 and was awarded the Order For Merit to the Fatherland 2 class in 2010. She outlived her husband Kolosov by only 11 days. The couple were buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

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