Marina Ladynina | |
---|---|
Born |
Marina Alekseyevna Ladynina June 24, 1908 Skotinino, Smolensk, Russian Empire |
Died | March 10, 2003 Moscow, Russian Federation |
(aged 94)
Resting place | Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow |
Occupation | actress |
Years active | 1929 - 1950s |
Spouse(s) | Ivan Pyryev |
Awards |
Stalin Prize (1941, 1942, 1926, 1948, 1951) |
Cossacks of Kuban fragment on YouTube. Ladynina (as Galina Peresvetova) sings You've Never Changed, Isaak Dunayevsky's song, with Klara Luchko (and company) taking up at 2:22. |
Stalin Prize (1941, 1942, 1926, 1948, 1951)
Marina Alekseyevna Ladynina (Russian: Мари́на Алексе́евна Лады́нина, June 24 [o.s. 11], 1908 in Skotinino, Smolensk, Russian Empire – March 10, 2003 in Moscow, Russian Federation) was a popular Soviet film and theatre actress, best remembered for her leading roles in Tractor Drivers (1939), The Swine Girl and the Shepherd (1941), Six O'Clock after the War is Over (1944), Ballad of Siberia (1947) and Cossacks of the Kuban (1949), all directed by her husband Ivan Pyryev. In 1950 Ladynina was honoured with the People's Artist of the USSR title. She was a five-times Stalin Prize laureate.
Marina Ladynina was born in Skotinino village, Smolensk, the eldest of four children, and spent her early years in Nazarovo, near Achinsk in Eniseisk governorate, Siberia. Her parents, Aleksey Dmitriyevich Ladynin (1879-1955) and Maria Naumovna (1889-1971) were uneducated peasants; the family lived in a small wooden hut and young Marina had to do most of the hard work in the house. She spent summers as a hired worker at a local farm, milking cows.
As a schoolgirl, Marina was an avid reader; she joined the school theatre where her first role was Natasha in Pushkin’s "Rusalka", and regularly performed at the local street carnivals. In her teens Marina became a part-time actress at the Achinsk Drama theater. Upon graduation, aged sixteen, Ladynina went on to work as teacher in Nazarovo. She continued to perform in Achinsk and give musical performances there too, but was now determined to go to Moscow for further education. Her first port of call was Smolensk, where she met Sergey Fadeyev, the Meyerhold Theatre actor who advised her to go and take exams at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts. By a happy coincidence the regional komsomol committee delegated Ladynina to Moscow to study social sciences. Instead she went straight to the Academy and gave an inspired performance before the jury which included celebrities like Serafima Birman and Vasily Luzhsky. She was instantly in, marked as "remarkably gifted" on the register list, which meant she was free from taking any further exams.