Marina Ladynina

Marina Alekseyevna Ladynina (; June 24, 1908 in Skotinino, Smolensk Governorate – March 10, 2003 in Moscow) 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 (1950). Laureate of five Stalin Prizes. Biography Early life Marina Ladynina was born in Skotinino village, 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. As a schoolgirl, Marina was an avid reader; she joined the school theatre where her first role was Natasha in Pushkin’s "Rusalka", and regularly performed at the local street carnivals. In her teens Marina became a part-time actress at the Achinsk Drama theater. Upon graduation, aged sixteen, Ladynina went on to work as teacher in Nazarovo. She continued to perform in Achinsk and give musical performances there too, but was now determined to go to Moscow for further education. Her first port of call was Smolensk, where she met Sergey Fadeyev, the Meyerhold Theatre actor who advised her to go and take exams at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts. By a happy coincidence the regional komsomol committee delegated Ladynina to Moscow to study social sciences. Instead she went straight to the Academy and gave an inspired performance before the jury which included celebrities like Serafima Birman and Vasily Luzhsky. She was instantly in, marked as "remarkably gifted" on the register list, which meant she was free from taking any further exams.