Natalya Varley

Natalya Varley (, born 22 June 1947) is a Soviet and Russian film and theater actress, who became famous in 1966 for her part in the comedy Kidnapping, Caucasian Style. In 1989 she was designated as a Meritorious Artist of RSFSR. Biography Natalya Varley was born in Constanţa, Romania, a daughter of the sea captain Vladimir Viktorovich Varley, who was also a one-time City Council chairman (Mayor, in modern terms) of Murmansk where the family lived. One of his 19th century paternal ancestors was a Welsh jockey who (along with his brother) had been invited to Russia to manage a horse-breeding factory, married a Russian and settled there. Natalya's mother, Ariadna Sergeyevna Varley (née Senyavina), a granddaughter of geologist Yevgeny Barbot de Marni, was of French and German origins, a distant relative to Alexey K. Tolstoy. Natalya was an artistic child; she started writing poetry at the age of four, was fond of painting and studied music. In the late 1950s, as the family settled in Moscow, she entered the Tsvetnoy Boulevard Circus's Children Studio and made a quick progress there, which was all the more impressive, considering she'd been a sickly child and suffered from rheumatism-related heart disorder which for several years prevented her from taking sports at school. After graduating the State Circus and Entertainment Art college in 1965, Varley joined the Moscow Tsvetnoy Boulevard Circus troupe as an equilibrist. Career In 1965, in Odessa where the troupe was on tour, Varley met Soviet clown and film actor Leonid Yengibarov. He proved to be a kindred spirit and became a close friend, as well as occasional stage partner. Once Yengibarov invited the film director Georgy Yungwald-Khilkevich to watch their performance. Stricken by Varley's stage persona, the latter invited her for a minor role to his latest movie, The Formula of Rainbow. During the filming Varley was spotted by the assistant of another film director, Leonid Gaidai, who invited her to the auditions for his new project, Kidnapping, Caucasian Style.