Day of birth and death of “The Most Modest and Charming Actress”
May 4 is a memorable and mournful day for admirers of Soviet cinema. On this day in 1934 in Leningrad, in the family of actor Evgeny Samoylov and his wife Zinaida Levina, an engineer, daughter Tatyana was born. On the same day, exactly 80 years later, in 2014, the wonderful Soviet actress Tatyana Samoylova passed away.
Tanya Samoylova combined her studies at school with ballet classes and was so successful in ballet art that at the end of school she received an invitation from Maya Plisetskaya herself to continue her studies at the ballet school at the Bolshoi Theater. But daddy's genes prevailed: Tanya decided to become a dramatic actress. And in 1953 she entered the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute ("Shchukinka") at the Moscow Vakhtangov Theatre. There she met her first love - Vasily Lanovoy ("Officers") - and married him.
While still a student of "Shchukinka", Tatyana Samoylova in 1955 played her first role in the full-length feature film directed by Vladimir Kaplunovskiy "Mexican" based on the story of the same name by Jack London. I dare to suggest that the choice of Tatyana Samoylova for the role of Maria was due to her choreographic data, since the role involved the performance of an incendiary Mexican dance paired with the then star of Soviet cinema Oleg Strizhenov.
Two years later, after graduating from college, Tatyana Samoylova played the main role in her life - Veronica in Mikhail Kalatozov's film "The Cranes Are Flying". The role brought her truly worldwide fame, in particular, a Special Mention at the Cannes International Film Festival and the Jury Award for “The Most Modest and Charming Actress”, a nomination for the British BAFTA Award in the Best Foreign Actress category. The victory in this nomination was awarded by the British Film Academy to Simone Signoret for her role in the film "Room at the Top" directed by Jack Clayton. But in what company of "relative losers" did the young 23-year-old Soviet Actress find herself: Anna Magnani, Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Giulietta Masina! And at home, in the USSR, neither Kalatozov's film nor the role of Tatyana Samoylova received any official recognition.
Two years later, in 1959, Tatyana Samoylova played the main female role in another film by Mikhail Kalatozov - "Letter Never Sent". And again, the motherland did not recognize the merits of either the film or Tatyana Samoylova. Moreover, in 1960 the Actress was fired from the Moscow Mayakovsky Theatre and remained unemployed for several years. Only foreign filmmakers supported the Soviet movie star. In 1961, the Hungarian director Mihály Szemes invited her to his film "Alba Regia", in the same 1961 - the Italian film director Marcello Pagliero in his film "Leon Garros Is Looking for His Friend (20,000 Leagues Across the Land)", in 1964, the Italian director Giuseppe De Santis offered Tatyana Samoylova a role in the film "Italiani brava gente (Attack and Retreat)".
The actress repeatedly received offers from Hollywood, but the Soviet film authorities did not allow the Actress to travel to the United States, because of which she had to refuse offers.
Only in 1967, the unjustified and inexplicable disgrace from the Actress was removed, and she was offered the title role in the film adaptation of the great novel by Leo Tolstoy "Anna Karenina" directed by Alexander Zarkhi. As a result of this, to put it mildly, underestimation of Tatyana Samoilova's acting talent, she had a chance to play in only 15 full-length feature films in her rather long life. And only decades after the most outstanding roles of the Actress, the motherland expressed her belated recognition to her. In 2007, at the Moscow International Film Festival, she was awarded the prize "For Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema", in 2009 she was awarded the Order of Honor - for her great contribution to the development of domestic cinematography.
Two films out of 15, in which the Actress played, entered the Golden Thousand. Based on this indicator and due to her amazing beauty, Tatyana Samoylova is included in the list of 100 most beautiful and sexy Actresses of world cinema, compiled by FilmGourmand. Today, on the birthday and death of the Actress, I want to remind her fans of the shots from the best films with her participation.
