Marina Ladynina

Marina Alekseyevna Ladynina (10 March 2003) was a Soviet stage and film actress, best remembered for her leading roles in her husband Ivan Pyryev's films. People's Artist of the USSR. Laureate of five Stalin Prizes.

Biography Early life Marina Ladynina was born in , Smolensk Governorate, the eldest of four children, and spent her early years in Nazarovo, near Achinsk in Yeniseysk 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. In 1934 the directors Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya gave Ladynina the part of the teacher Linka in Enemy's Paths (Vrazhji tropy). It was there that she met both actor Ivan Lyubeznov, whom she soon married, and director Ivan Pyryev. Another film she starred in, The Post at the Devil's Ford (directed by Miron Bilinsky in 1936) was pronounced 'ideologically wrong' and shelved. but the audiences loved the romantic story of a Russian country girl from Vologda (Ladynina) and Musaib, a shepherd from the Caucasus, played by Vladimir Zeldin. This paean to the friendship of Soviet nations became highly relevant and extremely popular at the frontlines where people of different ethnic groups fought against the Nazis side by side. So immense was Ladynina's popularity and so high was her status that for a while at the outset of the Moscow's Gorky street two huge portraits occupied the wall of a house, those of Ladynina and Stalin.

Unlike Lyubov Orlova (with whom her husband film director Grigori Aleksandrov was aiming at creating the alternative Hollywood on the Soviet soil), Marina Ladynina was a folklore-type actress to fit perfectly into the Pyryev-discovered genre of Soviet countryside musical comedy. "She symbolized happiness itself but nobody knew what kind of person she was in reality, in fact, nobody's ever wanted to know her, for in her last years she was tragically lonesome," according to Kichin.

Marina Ladynina who loved stage, spent the last half a century of her life out of it, waiting for this telephone call which never came. Unexpectedly, at 90, she received the Nika Award ("For Honour and Dignity") and the audience in the Cinema House greeted her with standing ovation. This was her last triumph after which there was silence again. "At the age of 95 Marina Ladynina died a 'rich bride' of the Soviet cinema: neither we nor she herself have had a chance to discover the true extent of her gift," Kichin concluded.

Awards 1938 – Order of the Red Banner of Labour for The Rich Bride (1937) 1941 – Stalin Prize first degree – for the Maryana Bazhan role in Tractor Drivers (1939) 1942 – Stalin Prize second degree – for the role of Glasha Novikova in They Met in Moscow (1941) 1944 – Honored Artist of the RSFSR 1946 – Stalin Prize second degree – for the role of Varya Pankova in Six P.M. (1944) 1948 – Stalin Prize first degree – for the role of Natasha Malinina in Ballad of Siberia (1947) 1950 – People's Artist of the USSR 1951 – Stalin Prize second degree – for the role of Galina Ermolayevna Peresvetova in Cossacks of the Kuban (1949) 1983 – Order of Friendship of Peoples 1997 – Nika Award, For Honour and Dignity 1998 – Order of Honour, Lifetime achievement

Selected filmography 1934 – Enemy's Paths (Vrazhji tropy). Linka, the school teacher 1937 – The Rich Bride (Bogataya nevesta). Marinka, Naum's granddaughter 1939 – Tractor Drivers (Traktoristy). Brigadier Maryana Bazhan 1940 – Sweetheart (Lyubimaya devushka). Varya Lugina, a Moscow industrial worker 1941 – They Met in Moscow (Svinarka y pastukh). Glasha Novikova 1942 – The Raikom Secretary (Sekretar raikoma). Natasha 1942 – Antosha Rybkin. Actress Larisa Semyonovna 1944 – Six P.M. (V shest chasov vetchera posle voiny). Varya Pankova, the kindergarten teacher 1947 – Ballad of Siberia (Skazaniye o zemle Sibirskoy). The singer Natasha Malinina 1949 – Cossacks of the Kuban (Kubanskiye kazaki). Galina Peresvetova, the kolkhoz director 1954 – Devotion (Ispytanie vernosti). Olga Kalmykova