Fatal Soviet beauty: actress Tatyana Piletskaya celebrates her 95th birthday

People’s Artist of Russia, one of the first beauties of Soviet cinema Tatyana Piletskaya celebrates her 95th birthday. She is perhaps the only active actress – she plays a lot in the theater, acts in films, travels all over the country.

She has more than ten performances a month, so getting her to shoot is a big problem. In May, Tatyana Lvovna was awarded the “Recognition” prize “for creating an impressive gallery of female images on the movie screen” at the “Vivat Cinema of Russia” festival in St. Petersburg. “I am a happy actress,” she says. I have been working in film and theater for 78 years. She first starred in Cinderella in 1947. She learned a lot from her partners and directors, because she did not have a dramatic education. I danced after graduating from the choreographic school. And I studied with my mother Galina Ulanova – Maria Fedorovna Romanova. I was lazy. Apparently, ballet is not my profession, despite the fact that I danced at the Musical Comedy Theater. In the corps de ballet, of course. Cinema has rebuilt me.”

In the wonderful eight-minute cartoon “Hi, granny!” Natalya Mirzoyan Piletskaya speaks for one of the grandmothers who celebrate New Year’s Eve together with eight-year-old Masha. The girl is bored. Her parents sent her to her grandmother. But here is going to a marvelous company. In addition to the old women, a tiny Santa Claus appears. He, too, is a grandmother, however, the girl does not suspect this. Beautiful ladies with dropping jaws were voiced by Tatyana Piletskaya, Kira Kreylis-Petrova and Lillian Malkina. But to call Piletskaya an old woman would not turn the tongue. She will give odds to anyone. The energy is crazy.

Two years ago I had a chance to visit with Tatyana Lvovna in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody. It was there that in the mid-1950s she starred in Princess Mary by Isidor Annensky as Vera, and in the 80s she played Princess Nesselrode in Lermontov by Nikolai Burlyaev. Tatyana Lvovna traveled from St. Petersburg to Essentuki by train, spent almost two days on the way. Then she told MK how she had to starve on the way: “I only took a bun on the road, and the restaurant car did not work on the train. Such a long distance, and it is closed. Sitting hungry.” Piletskaya’s life was so difficult, there were so many sorrows and poverty in her, that she can endure everything and never complains, does not make demands.

In her honor, a star was laid in Essentuki, but she came there not for the sake of celebrations, not as a faded star of past years, but in order to present the film “North Wind” by Renata Litvinova, where she played one of the representatives of the all-conquering matriarchy. Prior to this, the picture participated in the 50th Rotterdam Film Festival. Tatyana Piletskaya played Eternal Alice – an invincible woman living among the same steel ladies, stench and unviable men who would only play airplanes. “When Renata’s assistant called me to arrange a meeting, I was very busy, I was filming with Valentina Korovnikova in the short film Pas de Deux as a former ballerina,” recalls Tatyana Lvovna. – I had performances, but, of course, I went to the meeting. After we talked about the role that I can play, I asked if there would be more contenders for the role. Renata replied that after meeting with me there would be no one else.

Piletskaya has a rich pedigree, incredibly powerful ancestors, so you can understand where so much vitality comes from in this fragile actress. Her great-great-grandmother, after the death of her husband in the war with Napoleon, went as a cavalier girl to destroy the enemy, disguised as a man. In battle, she lost her arm, which did not prevent her from subsequently remarrying and becoming the mother of two children. In the Gulag Museum, you can see a film where Piletskaya remembers her father, who was sent to camps for being German. She herself was then a beginner ballerina and miraculously escaped. For this, he now thanks many often completely unfamiliar people who helped in difficult times.

She was called the fatal beauty, and now she is stubbornly offered the role of former ballerinas, since Piletskaya graduated from the choreographic school. Tatyana Lvovna and I tried to count all the former ballerinas she had played. “I played the former ballerina in Anton Sievers’ Palm Sunday. Then one actress came and offered a script, where there was also the role of a former ballerina. I, of course, agree. But I would like to play representatives of other professions. Our short film “Pas de deux” participated in many foreign festivals and received many awards. After it, I was again offered a script in which there was an ex-ballerina. Since I can’t sit without work, I agree. I got to Lenfilm by chance after graduating from the choreographic school. By that time, she had already danced at the Musical Comedy Theater. One actor offered to try his hand at cinema, took my photo. It took quite a bit of time, and I was invited to the crowd. We paid 4 rubles 50 kopecks. My mother and I lived a hard life, rarely ate white bread, so I was delighted when the assistant director asked if I knew how to ride a horse. I said I can. I was offered an episode in Grigory Kozintsev’s Pirogov. I have never sat in the saddle. Ten days I trained at the equestrian base. Kozintsev once asked me: “Are you a ballet dancer? Can you speak?” After that, the dressers came, dressed me in the costume of Daria Sevastopolskaya, and gave me boots of the 43rd size. So my last name first appeared in the credits.

Piletskaya was not approved for the role many times. She received faith in “Princess Mary” only after the second artistic council. The first one rejected it. As the actress herself says, they believed that she had evil eyes. So she did not play Desdemona in Othello. In 1963, she was offered to try herself at the Theater. Lenin Komsomol in Leningrad (now it is the theater “Baltic House”), and she ventured. “In the time that I have been working, six artistic directors have changed,” Piletskaya says. – When the roles were not given, she worked in the archive, studied the history of her family. This is how my first book “Silver Threads” appeared. Since then, as soon as a difficult period comes, I go to the archive and write books. I also write poetry.”

There were many wonderful things in the life of Tatyana Lvovna. Here is just one of her childhood stories: “My parents were friends with the family of Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin. Our family lived in Shuvalovo near Leningrad. My father worked in a factory there. He met Petrov-Vodkin on the train. When I was born, Kuzma Sergeevich expressed a desire to baptize me. He became my godfather. Once Kuzma Sergeevich told his mother that he wanted to draw me. They put a dress on me, gave me a doll that my father had brought from Leningrad. We rented a hut. Kuzma Sergeevich lived in one hut, and we lived in the other – dad, mom, grandmother, brother and me. I went to his terrace. We had five sessions. I was small, and it was difficult for me to sit in one place for a long time. Kuzma Sergeevich let me go for a run. This is how the portrait “Girl with a Doll” or “Portrait of Tatuli” was born. When Petrov-Vodkin fell out of favor, his works were distributed to various museums. “Girl with a doll” ended up in Tallinn. During the tour of our theater in Estonia, I contacted the museum, and my portrait was taken to the stage. For the first time in years, I was able to touch him.

Later, my mother and I lived in Tsarskoye Selo, in the Lyceum, in the rooms of the Petrov-Vodkin family when he left. Parents often went there for the holidays – New Year, name days, birthdays. They took me with them. Mom taught me how to play the piano and said: “Tatochka, play something for us.” I sat down at the piano and played Maykapar. My heart skipped a beat when I ended up there many years later. Everything has been rebuilt. She asked where the back door was, told how she once went out through it, climbed onto the monument to Alexander Sergeyevich, collected a bouquet of daisies and wove a wreath. Mom shouted to me: “Tata, go eat porridge.” No one seemed to believe my stories.”