Анастасия Вертинская: Советская актриса и путь к признанию

Soviet and Russian actress

Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya (Анастасия Александровна Вертинская, born 19 December 1944, Moscow, Soviet Union) is a Soviet and Russian actress, who came to prominence in the early 1960s with her acclaimed performances in Scarlet Sails, Amphibian Man and Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet. In the 1990s, disillusioned with the state of cinema at home, she went abroad to teach and spent 12 years in France, England, the United States and Switzerland. Their childhood was happy: growing up in a bi lingual family, Anastasiya enjoyed intellectually stimulating environment and the rich cultural atmosphere of her parents' circle. Vertinsky never scolded his daughters for failures, of which there were many because, as Anastasiya later remembered, she was more concerned at the time with exploring her dad's vast library than with her school studies. In 1962 Vertinskaya starred in the Amphibian Man, Gennady Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev's adaptation of Alexander Belyayev's science fiction novel of the same title. Cast as Gutierrez, a young woman in love with an amphibian man, Vertinskaya had to go through difficult late autumn underwater shooting sessions which she performed all by herself, without any stuntwomen involved. In 1962 Vertinskaya joined the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre troupe. This meant that from then on she had to continuously tour the country with the then popular so called "theater brigades". In 1963, assisted by Lyudmila Maksakova, her elder sister Marianna's friend, Vertinskaya enrolled into the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute. The young actress' eagerness to act was, in her own words, "next to maniacal." Nikita Mikhalkov was one of her fellow students. They fell in love and married in 1966, only to be divorced three years later. and proved to be a turning point in her career. As Kozintsev later wrote, Vertinskaya's strength was her "fragile purity and this Renaissance look she had." For the young actress working next to masters like Smoktunovsky proved to be invaluable in terms of learning, introducing the young actress to many of what she called "this magic kitchen's secrets." "Ophelia made me realize for the first time that acting was indeed my destiny," Theatrical experience was, admittedly, of the utmost importance to an actress who never felt confident enough while acting in movies. "I was a slow developer," she admitted years later. The actress (according to the magazine 7 Days) portrayed her heroine "not as a sultry beauty but as a Grace, infinitely charming and funny, full of boredom related whims and flashes of sincerity, the product of her lively, inquisitive mind." Among the grand men of the Soviet theatre who praised Vertinskaya's unusual versatility was Anatoly Efros who once said the actress was "so physically natural and yet artistically graceful" that it was "almost unbelievable." Occasionally, Vertinskaya remembered, she had to artificially "simplify" her facial features (even to stuff her nostrils) so as to fit the Soviet "common heroine" stereotype. "I realized that one had to reinvent oneself literally seven times during one's lifetime, otherwise one wouldn't be able to fully realize oneself. Why should I sit and moan about good roles eluding me? You need to learn to turn your back on the scene that doesn't suit you," she later explained in an interview, speaking also of how relieved she felt at having dropped this 'everlasting worry' about the need of being continuously in demand. Vertinskaya's two major concerns in the 21st century were the Russian Actors Foundation charity she founded in 1991, as well as restoring and producing her father's records; three of them came out in France.

Vertinskaya's 1961 debut was successful with both cinema fans and critics, some of the latter hailing the fifteen year old a future star of the Soviet cinema. "It was as if a young flower blossomed before our eyes in the Soviet cinema," critic Andrei Plakhov recalled years later. Ophelia in Grigory Kozintsev's Hamlet marked a turning point in Vertinskaya's career. "Vertinskaya's Ophelia is probably one of the best in the history of theater and film. This role is extremely difficult for being seemingly unsubstantial next to those of Hamlet and other grandiose figures. Vertinskaya succeeded perfectly in making it fit in," Andrey Plakhov wrote. Her next, miniature but significant role, that of Princess Bolkonskaya in Sergey Bondarchuk's epic War and Peace garnered even more accolades. Critics noted a rare virtuosity with which "such a tragically fleeting, intrinsically unfulfilled character [had been made] strikingly vivid" and, even more extraordinary, continuously developing in the course of just four short scenes. "In Princess Liza there is a lot of inner dynamics and total integrity," according to the Actors of Soviet Cinema (1967) almanac. The fact that, unwilling to join the Soviet cinema's mainstream, she preferred to remain an enigmatic, out of the spotlight persona, added to her charisma. Later Vertinskaya solidified her reputation as "the nation's most secretive movie treasure," avoiding journalists and making her private life the subject of rumours and insinuations. One of Vertinskaya's most notable roles in the 1970s was Countess Olyvia in The Twelfth Night, produced in Sovremennik by Peter Brook. Buoyed by the English director's democratic, improvisational approach and the energy of the star studded cast, Vertinskaya fully realized her potential as a comedy actress. Konstantin Raikin thought Vertinskaya here was just playing herself. "She herself is very funny, ironic and naughty, so for once her own personality fitted into a role perfectly," he said. Vertinskaya as Mona in Mikhail Kozakov's Nameless Star was praised as quite natural and organic. The film had problems with the Soviet censorship but later was rated No.64 on Roskino's list of The Best Russian Films of All Time. In The Master and Margarita (1994) the actress revealed hitherto unknown side of her artistic credo. According to V. Plotnikov, for years Vertinskaya has been "a victim of her background: everybody saw her as a 'little countess' or 'a little princess', while she herself often referred to herself as a natural born witch." Tatyana Moskvina agreed that "infernal shadows of Bulgakov's novel" perfectly suited Vertinskaya, a "natural born Margarita," neither "good nor evil, just totally otherworldly." This "hidden fire" of Bulgakov's heroine "has been burning in all of Vertinskaya's characters one way or another," the critic opined.

In 1967 Vertinskaya married Nikita Mikhalkov, now a renowned Russian film director and actor, then a fellow student at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute. Half a year after their son Stepan was born. She is a godmother to Anna, Artem, and Nadia, Nikita's children from his second wife.