Elena Sanaeva: biography and personal life of the Soviet actress (photo)

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Among the famous Russian actresses, one of the most charming and interesting is Elena Sanaeva. Her biography is full of dramatic and bright events in both cinematic and personal life.

Rising movie star

For the first time, a stately beauty with sensual lips and an expressive look of large brown eyes appeared on the screen in Zagida Sabitova's military drama "General Rakhimov", the next role was the heroine of Maxim Gorky's early stories in Fyodor Filippov's film "Across Russia". In the painting by Aida Manasarova “The Chief Witness”, created in 1969 based on the stories of A. P. Chekhov, Elena Sanaeva accurately and subtly played the role of the widow Maria Kapluntsova, passionately in love with her neighbor, who is on trial for the murder of her husband. The actress confirmed the right to this role at screen tests so convincingly that she pushed all other contenders away at once. And it turned out so thanks to the wise advice of his father.

Childhood memories

It's no secret that actress Elena Sanaeva is the daughter of the famous Soviet actor Vsevolod Vasilyevich Sanaev. She isshe was born in the military year of 1943, she was sick a lot and often, but her parents were ready to give their lives to have their only daughter after the death of her two-year-old brother Alyosha. The kid died in the evacuation from diphtheria, complicated by measles, forever leaving a deep spiritual wound in the heart of his mother, Lydia Antonovna. The public learned about the difficult and dramatic relationship in the Sanaev family from the story “Bury me behind the plinth”, which was written by the son of the actress, Pavel. Elena Sanaeva shared some of her memories of childhood and youth in an interview. She told how at the age of five she fell ill with jaundice, which was very difficult to cope with in those years, and her mother selflessly treated her daughter, carried her in her arms into the fresh air, and finally decided to baptize the girl. The ceremony was performed at home, over a basin, putting a copper cross on Lena's pale neck. After that, she went on the mend.

The actress's memories of her mother and father are full of gratitude and warmth. Perhaps, in those difficult years, Elena Sanayeva learned compassion, patience, the ability to help and support a person. The actress recalls how in 1952 her mother, having told a joke in the communal kitchen, was threatened with denunciation and fell ill with “persecution mania”. Then the woman suffered from depression all her life, which, coupled with her domineering nature and longing for unfulfilled dreams, turned Lydia Antonovna into a domestic tyrant and provoked quarrels with loved ones.

Debuts

When Lena grew up, she entered GITIS. And here the father was very supportive of his daughter in her creativedaring. He told her more than once: “We, the Sanaevs, are a talented people. Believe in yourself, and the case will come - and you will be ready for it. After graduation, the girl began to play in the Moscow theater-studio of a film actor.

Twenty-six-year-old Elena was noticed by Vasily Shukshin. In his film "Strange People" the acting duet flashed brightly and talentedly, where Elena Sanaeva and Vsevolod Vasilyevich Sanaev also played a daughter and a father. And then the star family appeared in another Shukshin tape - "Stoves and Benches". Elena often got supporting roles, but in them she showed such a creative temperament that the directors always saw and noted an outstanding girl. Nevertheless, actress Elena Sanayeva, whose biography in the cinema shone with new facets after meeting with Rolan Bykov, was not spoiled for the time being.

Office Romance

The fateful meeting took place in 1973, on the set of the film Docker. Rolan Bykov was dissatisfied with downtime at work due to the fact that a certain actress Sanaeva, you see, is afraid to fly by plane and travels by train. When Rolan Antonovich saw a capricious stranger, whom he knew only that she was "daddy's daughter", he instantly "fell" into her bottomless eyes. In the film, they were to play lovers. Elena's lips reddened after the too-believable kiss. Bykov was then 43 years old, he had just parted ways with his first wife, actress Lydia Knyazeva. Elena was thirteen years younger, and looked even ten years younger. Outwardly, they also do not fit each other: she is tall, thin, he is short andstocky. "Do not mount!" - the father of the actress determined the possibilities of the couple. However, the inner desire for each other, the energy of attraction that arose between these two people, bound them not only in a creative, but also in a vital union. A year later, Bykov, kneeling in a Tallinn restaurant (in Estonia, the film "Car, Violin and Blot Dog" was filmed) proposed to his beloved.

Personal facts

Elena Sanaeva's first husband, engineer Vladimir Konuzin, whom the actress always remembers with respect, gave her a son, Pavel. Vladimir's parents were against him marrying an actress, the couple did not live together for long - their views and habits were very different. When Rolan Bykov became Lena's chosen one, for some reason her parents grumbled. The nickname "dwarf-bloodsucker", which Lidia Antonovna awarded her son-in-law, is not only an artistic image from a book written by the son of Elena Sanaeva. Relations did not go well for a long time, until the strong and purposeful nature of Rolan Antonovich was able to redirect the situation in a peaceful direction. Thanks to Rolan Bykov, the mother-in-law lived three months longer and finally reconciled with her daughter. Heartfelt conversations with his son-in-law brightened up the last year of his life and Vsevolod Sanaev, who left after his wife a few months after her death.

Best roles

After the wedding, the spouses were lucky to play a couple of crafty swindlers in Leonid Nechaev's movie fairy tale "The Adventures of Pinocchio". At first, Bykov did not like the idea, but Elena, sensitive to acting luck, said that from suchroles are not relinquished. The duet of the fox Alice and the cat Basilio turned out to be enchantingly bright. Elena unexpectedly revealed herself as a sharp-character actress. The new roles that followed this tape were often funny and memorable. Sanaeva also starred in the films of Rolan Bykov. There were even malicious rumors in Moscow that the young actress was seduced by this marriage for the sake of her career. Of course, it was nonsense. The talented director Bykov never made special roles for her, did not suit her cinematic fate. And one could only dream of such tender and creatively rich relationships that Bykov and Sanaeva had. In life, for each other, they were support and joy. Elena gave her husband a magnificent fusion of strength of character, gentleness, emotionality and peace of mind. He gave her reliable support, many bright moments of creativity, sincere generosity with which he selflessly helped many confused people, shared with her the genius of a rare gift to understand children and feel responsible for the future.

Fictional book

The story "Bury me behind the plinth" delighted Rolan Bykov. It was exactly the combination of sincerity and artistry that the famous director and actor wanted to see in the writer. Childhood torment and suffering experienced by little Sasha Savelyev (the prototype of the author, Pavel Sanaev) are woven into the intrigue of relationships with his mother, to whom the grandmother did not allow her grandson for a long time, and with his stepfather, whom at first the boy was terribly afraid and jealous. When, at the insistence of Rolan Antonovich, Pasha was finally taken away from his grandparents, in his lifea new streak began. The guy did not become a “notorious neurasthenic”, according to him, largely thanks to the wisdom of his stepfather. He managed to improve relations with the boy and instill in him a taste for creative work.

Life without Roland

1996 was marked by a terrible diagnosis that Rolan Bykov was diagnosed with. Doctors found he had a cancerous tumor in his lungs and performed an operation. But two years later, Bykov was again in a hospital bed and knew that he would no longer survive. In October 1998 he died. It is hard to imagine how Elena Sanaeva survived the tragedy. The biography of the honored artist has changed forever with the departure of a close friend and reverently loved one. But this test did not break the woman. Until his last breath, Roland courageously endured the pain, and Elena did everything imaginable and unthinkable to push back the terrible end. And then she, having gathered strength, began to continue the work that her husband had not finished. She took up his archives, continued to work on materials for the documentary film "The Gospel of the Skomorokh", which Rolan Antonovich conceived and did not have time to implement. TV viewers saw two documentaries that Elena Vsevolodovna Sanaeva shot as a director: "The Work of My Life" about photographer Yuri Rost and "It's Hard to Be Herman" about film director Alexei German.

Theatrical gift

In 2007, Elena Sanayeva starred in the film of her son Pavel "Kilometer Zero", for this excellently played episodic role, the actress claimed the award of the film festival "Constellation".

Then there were several more film roles, but the most interesting thing was that the actress returned to the theater stage, from which she began her creative biography. Here she plays in the plays of the most talented modern playwrights - Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Dmitry Bykov, Evgeny Grishkovets.

Iosif Reichelgauz, director of the School of Modern Play theater, where the actress works, speaks of her as a very meaningful person, for whom, when she goes on stage, the text is no longer important. She is unusually interesting in itself: how she holds herself, thinks, talks. Colleagues feel around her a special aura of warmth and talent, and also the constant invisible presence of Rolan Bykov, the spirit of his era. The gift of living in two times is something that the magnificent actress Elena Sanaeva perfectly owns. Photos of her first roles and illustrations of contemporary works inspire with the special charge of artistic passion that this strong, wise and beautiful woman possesses.