The tragic fate of Faina Ranevskaya. The tragic fate of Faina Ranevskaya Where did F g Ranevskaya live

Faina Girshevna Feldman was born on August 15 (27), 1896 in Taganrog into a wealthy Jewish family. Parents - a native of the town of Smilovichi, Igumen district, Minsk province (now Chervensky district, Minsk region, Republic of Belarus) Girsh Khaimovich Feldman (1863-1938) and a native of Lepel, Vitebsk province (now Lepelsky district, Vitebsk region, Republic of Belarus) Milka Rafailovna Zagovailova (1872 - after 1957) - married December 26, 1889.

In addition to Faina, the family had three sons (Yakov, Rudolf and Lazar) and a daughter, Bella.

At the time of Faina’s birth, her father was an honorary member of the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria and the owner of a dry and oil paint factory, several houses, a building materials store and the steamship “St. Nicholas”. In 1898, the family moved to a house rebuilt by order of their father at 12 Nikolaevskaya Street, which previously belonged to the merchant Mikhail Nikolaevich Kamburov.

Feldman family house
in Taganrog
on the street Nikolaevskaya (now Frunze St., 10).
Faina studied at the Taganrog Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium, without graduating. At the same time, she received the usual home education for a girl from a wealthy family: she studied music, singing, and foreign languages. Faina was interested in theater from the age of 14, attending classes at the private theater studio of A. Jagello (A. N. Govberg).

Fanny, as her parents called her, was an insecure and shy girl from childhood. The future actress had a speech impediment - she stuttered, so her parents took Fanny out of school and transferred her to home schooling. The girl really liked foreign languages, music, singing and, especially, books.

Already at the age of 14, Faina knew somewhere in the depths of her soul that she would be an actress, so she began taking lessons in a private theater studio. After graduating from school, one thought came to the girl’s head: “To Moscow, to conquer the stage!” and, in 1915, despite her father's objections, she moved to the capital.

It is difficult to understand why, living without material problems, Faina felt unhappy and lonely. Perhaps the reason for her increased vulnerability was a slight stutter, which Ranevskaya suffered from birth. Fearing ridicule, Faina avoided her peers, had no friends and did not like to study. “I studied poorly, arithmetic was a terrible torture. I never learned to write without mistakes. Count too. This is probably why I have always, and to this day, always been without money...” the actress later recalled.

In Moscow she will meet Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky and Kachalov, who will also have their influence on the formation of the future great actress. During the revolution, Faina did not leave the country (even though she had the opportunity), the artist preferred to travel throughout the country, performing in various theaters.

One of her first teachers was actress Pavel Wulf, who “picked up” Faina on her tour in Rostov. This brilliant actress became the teacher of the future actress, teaching her to make a masterpiece even from a small role!

The public fell madly in love with Faina; she was the person who was not afraid to say what she thought. Her caustic expressions were recorded and repeated for years, never ceasing to evoke laughter and tears.

It was she who called New Arbat “Moscow’s dentures”, and the monument on Teatralnaya Square - “Marx crawling out of the refrigerator” or “refrigerator with a beard”.

Behind her lively nature hid a very vulnerable and melancholy person who considered loneliness an inextricable companion to talent. “Who would know my loneliness? Damn him, this very talent that made me unhappy. But the audience really loves it? What's the matter? Why is it so hard in the theater? There are also Gangsters in the movies,” said Faina.

“I’m so lonely, all my friends have died, my whole life is work... I suddenly envied you. I envied the ease with which you work, and for a moment I hated you. But I work hard, I am haunted by fear of the stage, of the future audience, even of my partners.

I'm not being capricious, girl, I'm afraid. This is not from pride. Not failure, not lack of success, I’m afraid, but - how can I explain it to you? “This is my life, and how terrible it is to misuse it.”

There are also several funny stories about the actress: “Once Ranevskaya slipped on the street and fell. An unfamiliar man was walking towards her. - Pick me up! - asked Ranevskaya. “People’s artists don’t lie on the road!”

“Once, in a park near Ranevskaya’s house, a woman turned to her:
- Sorry, your face is very familiar to me. Are you not an artist?
Ranevskaya sharply retorted:
– Nothing of the kind, I’m a dental technician.
The woman, however, did not calm down, the conversation continued, talk about age came up, the interlocutor asked Faina Georgievna;
- And how old are you?
Ranevskaya answered proudly and indignantly:
“The whole country knows about this!”

I've been lonely all my life

Faina Ranevskaya never got married. She was once asked if she had ever been in love. Ranevskaya told an episode from her youth. She was in love with a handsome actor who played with her in the troupe. One day the actor told her that he would come to her house in the evening. Ranevskaya dressed up, set the table... The actor came drunk and with a woman. “Baby, take a walk somewhere for a couple of hours, my dear,” he said. “Since then, not only have I fallen in love, I can’t look at them: they are bastards and scoundrels!” - Ranevskaya admitted.

However, in the early 60s, Faina Ranevskaya had a period when she did not feel lonely. The actress received a letter from her sister Bella, who lived at one time in France, and then, having buried her husband, moved to Turkey, and then, not without the help of Ranevskaya, to the USSR. The sisters lived together for several years, but Bella was soon diagnosed with cancer. Ranevskaya called the best doctors and spent the already hopeless nights with her. The hospital, the operation - everything was useless. Bella died in 1964...

Ranevskaya lived in complete solitude for the next 20 years. A year before her death, Faina Georgievna refused to play on stage. “Old age,” she said, “is a terrible thing. All my bones hurt. Very tired, very tired. Eighty-seven years! I’m not Yablochkina to play until I’m 100 years old. No, I won’t go on stage again!”

On July 19, 1994, the great actress passed away; Faina Ranevskaya died after suffering a heart attack and pneumonia.

One of the most talented Soviet actresses of the last century was the eccentric and unforgettable Faina Ranevskaya. She turned any most ordinary role into a bright and memorable one. There were times when the public came to watch an episode with her participation, and then left the theater without finishing the production.

The creative biography of Faina Ranevskaya was very difficult, “out of a hundred percent allocated for life, I used only one.” But we know that she put her whole soul and great talent into this percentage.

What was she like, the queen of episodes?

Ranevskaya Faina Georgievna is not the actress’s real name. Fanny Girshevna Feldman was born in Taganrog in 1896. Her parents were rich Jews, natives of Belarus. They owned a paint factory, several houses, a building materials store, and even a steamship. In addition to the girl, three brothers and a sister grew up in the family.

Faina received a good home education, which was customary at that time for girls from rich families. She studied at the gymnasium for some time, but her studies were not easy, and she begged her parents to take her out of school.

As a child, Faya had difficulty getting along with her peers; she was very shy and vulnerable. In addition, she stuttered badly and was ugly. True, this did not stop her from organizing puppet shows with her family, voicing characters in a manner characteristic of each.

At the age of fourteen, a young girl met a famous actress on vacation, after which, upon returning home, she became a frequent visitor to the local drama theater. It was then that she decided to devote herself to the stage. The father was horrified. At that time, an artistic career for a girl from a decent, wealthy family was considered a disgrace. An ultimatum was put forward to my daughter - either the theater or the family. Faina was stubborn and chose the stage.

In 1915, she went to Moscow, where she tried to enter several theater schools, but was not accepted due to a speech impediment. Faina went to study at a private school - the teachers didn’t care as long as they paid the money. And they had to earn it as an extra in summer theaters.

But there was still not enough money, and the mother helped her daughter secretly from the father. One day, leaving the bank, Faina decided to count the bills she had received, but a gust of wind tore them out of her hands. Sighing, the actress said: “Oh, how beautifully they fly!”, after which her companion compared the girl with Chekhov’s heroine from “The Cherry Orchard,” landowner Ranevskaya - she also could not hold anything in her hands. This is how young Faya got her pseudonym.

During the revolution, the entire Feldman family went into exile on their own ship, leaving Faya alone. Only in the mid-fifties was she able to meet her mother and older sister.

Having never finished drama school, Faina began working on the theater stage. She started with provincial small theaters, in each of which she worked for no more than one or two years. First the Moscow region, then Rostov-on-Don, Feodosia, Kerch, Baku, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Stalingrad, and only by 1931 Ranevskaya returned to Moscow again.

But even here, the restless actress did not stay in one place. Four years at the Chamber Theater, then the same amount at the Central Theater of the Red Army, six years at the Drama Theater (now named after Mayakovsky), eight at the Theater. Pushkin, and finally settled in the Theater. Mossovet, where she worked until her death.

Faina's first real teacher was Pavel Wulf. She noticed the talent and worked with the girl just like that. Faya literally fell in love with the teacher and practically became a member of her family.

The career started out difficult. Bulky and awkward Ranevskaya with an unattractive appearance and figure at first played only episodic roles, but on stage she transformed and was remembered by the public as one of the most interesting and charismatic actresses.

Most Popular Roles

Faina Ranevskaya in her youth was very vulnerable and shy, but even in adulthood, despite a sharp tongue and a keen sense of humor, she did not tolerate criticism well. But she herself made fun of her appearance and harmful things.

She was forgiven for a lot, because the audience loved her and gladly went to theatrical performances with Faina’s participation.

To the cinema

The first film in Ranevskaya’s career was the silent film “Pyshka,” which was released in 1934. Faina was 38 years old and played Madame Loiseau. In 1937, she got the role of a priest in the children's film “Duma about the Cossack Golota.” And then the triumphant “Foundling,” where Faina plays a powerful and self-confident wife, pushing her husband around.

In total, Faina Georgievna played in twenty-five films. She herself considered the character of the evil stepmother from the film “Cinderella” to be her most successful role.

In general, Ranevskaya did not highly value film work: “The money was eaten up, but the shame remained,” she preferred theatrical roles. But it was through films that she became famous throughout the country and became loved by many.

Back in the late thirties, she played three star roles, three wives in different films: in the film “The Man in a Case” she was the wife of an inspector, in “Engineer Cochin’s Mistake” she was the wife of tailor Gurevich, and of course the most famous role of the wife from “The Foundling” ”, after which she was called Mulya for a long time.

In 1947, the comedy film “Spring” was released, where Ranevskaya played Margarita Lvovna. Her excellent performance, as well as Lyubov Orlova in the title role, made the film a box office success and very popular.

In the theatre

Ranevskaya considered her most significant role to be the governess Charlotte from The Cherry Orchard; it was with this performance that her theatrical career began. In total, she played more than fifty roles in various productions.

The talented actress often had her own vision of the game, improvised on the spot, and sometimes even rewrote her role without permission. Because of this, conflicts arose with directors, which is why Faina wandered from one theater to another for so long.

In teleplays

In 1963, Ranevskaya took part in the television play “So It Will Be,” and in 1978 in the film-play “Next - Silence...”, where she played one of the main roles. Her stage partners were Rostislav Plyatt and Irina Muravyova. According to critics and viewers, the production was a stunning success thanks to Plyatt and Ranevskaya.

In cartoons

Who among the children has not watched “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”? But few people know that the matchmaker Babarikha was voiced by Faina Ranevskaya.

The most famous voice acting was, of course, Freken Bock from everyone’s favorite cartoon about Carlson. Ranevskaya terribly did not want to voice it, because she believed that the character was drawn ugly. It was difficult to persuade her.

Faina's fans considered her a great actress, but she is also known for her inexhaustible sense of humor. Sharp and apt aphorisms have become a part of our lives; many do not even suspect that their author is Ranevskaya.

One has only to read her slightly rude and cynical, but apt expressions, and the mood immediately improves.

The TOP 12 famous phrases are as follows.

1. Horseradish, based on the opinions of others, ensures a calm and happy life.
2. I've been swimming in the toilet butterfly style my whole life.
3. Health is when you have pain in a different place every day.
4. Under the most beautiful peacock tail hides the most ordinary chicken ass. So less pathos, gentlemen.
5. Do you know what it's like to act in a movie? Imagine that you are washing in a bathhouse, and they take you on a tour there.
6. Sclerosis cannot be cured, but it can be forgotten.
7. When I start writing my memoirs, I can’t get beyond the phrase “I was born into the family of a poor oil industrialist...”.
8. If the patient really wants to live, doctors are powerless.
9. I don't recognize the word "play". You can play cards, horse races, checkers. You need to live on stage.
10. Everything pleasant in this world is either harmful, immoral, or leads to obesity.
11. To help us see how much we are overeating, our stomach is located on the same side as our eyes.
12. It’s better to be a good person who swears than a quiet, well-mannered creature.

Recognition and awards

Faina Ranevskaya has received many awards. We list only the most popular ones.

1. Medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, Order of the Badge of Honor, medal “In Memory of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow”, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and the Order of Lenin.
2. Two Stalin Prizes of the second degree and one of the third.
3. She was an Honored and People's Artist of the RSFSR, and in 1961 she received the title of People's Artist of the USSR.

Unfortunately, Faina did not find happiness in love. Those who liked her did not pay attention to her because of her unattractive appearance. And vice versa, those who sought the favor of the great actress did not like her categorically.

In her youth, young Ranevskaya was in love with one of the actors with whom she played on the same stage, but he caused her considerable psychological trauma. Promising to come to her home, the unlucky hero-lover showed up very drunk, and even with a lady. Not at all embarrassed, he asked Faina to walk for a couple of hours while he had fun.

Ranevskaya's resentment was so strong that she swore off getting married.

Only on stage did Faina Georgievna liberate herself, but in life she was withdrawn and very lonely. She believed that her appearance ruined her personal life, although she was a very charming woman.

There were still men in her life, but it was not the same. Already in adulthood in 1947, she met Fyodor Tolbukhin, who headed the Transcaucasian Military District, and simply glowed with happiness. But two years later he died unexpectedly...

last years of life

Ranevskaya played in the theater almost until her last. She performed her last performance at the age of 86, but she was often ill, so she announced that she was no longer able to “feign health.” She once said: “When I die, bury me and write on the monument: "I died of disgust."

Faina Georgievna died in a Moscow hospital from a heart attack complicated by pneumonia at the age of 87 years.

Interesting facts about Faina Ranevskaya

1. Close friends called Faina – Fufa the Magnificent.
2. When Faya announced to her family that she would be an actress, it caused great shock, as well as excommunication from her home.
3. Ranevskaya was not destined to become either a wife or a mother.
4. Ranevskaya was so tired of the catchphrase from the film “Foundling” that she flew into a rage when she heard it. One day the boys, seeing Faina Georgievna, began chanting: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous!” Then the actress ordered them to line up in pairs and loudly told them to “fuck off!”
5. Ranevskaya kept all her awards and orders in a box with the inscription: “Funeral supplies.”
6. Ranevskaya was a vegetarian. She said: “I can’t eat meat. It walked, loved, looked... Maybe I'm a psychopath? No, I consider myself a normal psychopath. But I can't eat meat. I keep meat for people.”
7. Faina Georgievna did not know how to count “this stupid money”, so she always hired a housewife to run the household.
8. An ordinary mongrel named Boy became a real family for an elderly woman. She doted on her dog and even refused to go to the hospital for treatment. The dog outlived its owner by six years. A figurine of a dog was installed on the actress’s tombstone.
9. Ranevskaya took care of Anna Akhmatova when she was sick with typhus and kept her notebooks with poems. She was familiar with Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky, Mandelstam.
10. The actress was constantly seen with a cigarette in her mouth, and her favorite words were “shit” and “f*ck” - she constantly used them not only in everyday life, but also on the radio and during interviews. Once she asked to explain why iron ships do not sink. They tried to remind her about Archimedes’ law, but Ranevskaya stated that she never had a vocation for the exact sciences. Then they asked her why, when you sit in the bathtub, water spills out onto the floor. The actress sadly replied: “Because I have a big ass.”
11. Ranevskaya stuttered badly, but when she played, the stuttering disappeared somewhere.
12. One day, on the street, an elderly actress slipped and fell. He lies down and shouts: “People! Lift me up! After all, folk artists don’t lie on the street!”
13. An asteroid discovered in 1986 was named after Ranevskaya.

Conclusion

People like Faina Ranevskaya do not leave without a trace. She remained in the memory of thousands of fans, as well as on old films. A monument was erected to her in Taganrog, and one of the streets bears her name. Great talent, sparkling sarcasm, and the ability to serve art have forever left the mark of the great actress in history.

She lived a long, eventful life, full of drama and loneliness, literally a month shy of her 88th birthday. Not everyone knows that the surname Ranevskaya is actually a pseudonym, which the actress took in her early youth from the play “The Cherry Orchard” by her fellow Taganrog resident Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, whom she idolized.

Complete mediocrity

In 1915, a young girl of very unusual appearance came to the director of one of the Moscow theaters with a letter of recommendation. The letter was signed by a close friend of the director, Moscow entrepreneur Sokolovsky. “Dear Vanyusha,” he wrote, “I am sending you this lady just to get rid of her. You yourself somehow delicately, with a hint, in parentheses, explain to her that she has nothing to do on stage, that she has no prospects. It’s really inconvenient for me to do this for a number of reasons, so you, my friend, somehow talk her out of her acting career - it will be better for both her and the theater. This is complete mediocrity, she plays all the roles exactly the same, her last name is Ranevskaya...” It is unknown what the fate of 19-year-old Faina would have been like if Vanyushka had heeded his friend’s request and kicked out the aspiring actress.

Also in 1915, Ranevskaya began her stage activity at the Malakhovsky Dacha Theater near Moscow. She did not study at theater institutes, but, remaining in a certain sense unprofessional, traveled halfway across the country with provincial troupes. Her first successes in the profession are associated with the performance of characteristic roles, for example, Charlotte in “The Cherry Orchard”, Zmeyukina in Chekhov’s “The Wedding”, Dunka in “Yarovaya Love”. Since 1931, Ranevskaya has been an actress at the Moscow Chamber Theater, then she worked at the Central Theater of the Red Army and at the Theater. Mossovet.

In search of true holy art

Once, in a television interview, Ranevskaya, with her characteristic self-irony, recalled her eventful youth associated with the change of numerous theater groups. When asked by presenter Natalya Krymova about the reasons for such vigorous activity, Faina Georgievna answered:

– I was looking for real holy art!
- And finally found him?
- Yes.
- Where?
– In the Tretyakov Gallery.

Ranevskaya really worked in many theaters: Malakhovsky, Evpatoriya, Smolensky and others. These were, of course, provincial groups, but it was in them that the aspiring actress learned all the basics of theatrical art. A great success was the acquaintance and friendship with the famous dramatic actress and teacher Pavel Leontievna Wulf, thanks to which the young artist not only had a stage partner, but also a mentor.

Ranevskaya’s enormous talent was revealed both in major roles and in small episodes. What is worth one tiny role of Manka the Speculator from the play based on the play “Storm” by V. Bill-Belotserkovsky! Firstly, the text of her heroine was completely invented by Faina Georgievna herself, and secondly, the exact fit into the image, the grotesque and brilliant acting made this scene the most striking in the entire performance. Manka pretends to be deaf, asking each time: “What are you digging?”, but in reality he is playing for time to evade responsibility. Her Ukrainian dialect, cold voice and constant fear are the frame on which the experienced actress strings the image of the enemy of Soviet power. Reaching despair, Manka is ready to bribe the security officer, but only the presence of a revolver aimed at her shows the futility of the plan. Many spectators who came to the theater specifically to watch Ranevskaya left the performance after this scene, which is why it was subsequently removed.

Film debut

Ranevskaya first appeared on the silver screen at the rather respectable age of 38, when her theatrical experience was more than two decades. This is how the actress herself recalls her first steps in cinema: “This misfortune happened to me back in the 30s. At that time I was an actress at the Chamber Theater, where I was lucky enough to work with such a wonderful director as Tairov. One day I collected all the photographs that showed me in roles (and there were many of them) played in peripheral theaters, and sent them to Mosfilm. I thought then that this photo gallery could demonstrate to directors my ability to transform and amaze them. I waited impatiently for the invitation to film, but was punished for such immodesty. One of my friends, who was filming a movie at the time, which aroused a feeling of black envy in me, soon returned all the pictures to me, saying: “No one needs this - they asked me to give it to you.” I hated all the filmmakers and even stopped going to the movies. One day, a friendly young man approached me on the street and said that he had seen me in the Chamber Theater’s play “Pathetique Sonata,” after which he became eager to film me at all costs. I threw myself on his neck...” This young man turned out to be aspiring director Mikhail Romm, and the film “Pyshka,” in which he invited Ranevskaya to star, was his first independent directorial work.

Semitic and anti-Semitic traits

The great director Sergei Eisenstein dreamed of filming Ranevskaya. In the film “Ivan the Terrible” she was offered the role of Efrosinya Staritskaya, but Faina Georgievna did not pass the screen test, since, according to the Minister of Cinematography Bolshakov, “Ranevskaya’s Semitic features showed up very clearly, especially in close-ups.” Ironically, the role of Staritskaya was played by another actress with no less pronounced Jewish features - Serafima Birman. So, apparently, the problem lay not in Ranevskaya’s Jewish origin, but in herself.

On the sidelines

It so happened that over the course of her entire film career, Faina Georgievna was lucky enough to play about 25 roles (in the films “Pyshka”, “Duma about the Cossack Golota”, “Foundling”, “Man in a Case”, “Engineer Cochin’s Mistake”, “Beloved Girl”, “ Mirgorod”, “Dream”, “How Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich quarreled”, “Alexander Parkhomenko”, “New Adventures of Schweik”, “Three Guardsmen”, “Wedding”, “Heavenly Slug”, “Elephant and String”, “Cinderella” "", "Private A. Sailors", "Spring", "Meeting on the Elbe", "They have a Motherland", "Girl with a Guitar", "Caution, Grandma", "Drama", "Easy Life", "First Visitor ", "Today is a new attraction"), and only one main one - in the film "Dream". One can only be amazed that her great talent was used only to a small extent. In Hollywood, special scripts were written “for movie stars,” but Soviet cinema, with rare exceptions, did not adhere to this practice. Ranevskaya did not have a husband-director, like, for example, Lyubov Orlova or Valentina Serova, so the brilliant actress could not count on leading roles. The cinema fully exploited Ranevskaya’s comedic gift, which saved weak films from failure: one appearance of Faina Georgievna, even in a small episode, made a very average film quite bearable. So in the film “Alexander Parkhomenko” there is a tiny fragment when the tapper in the tavern plays the piano and sings. This is exactly what was stated in the script, but how skillfully Ranevskaya played this scene! In a matter of minutes, the audience formed a complete image of this movie heroine: pseudo-carelessness, bordering on petty sycophancy, could not hide from our eyes. And there are a sufficient number of such examples. In some films, there was no role for Ranevskaya at all, so she had to compose the text for herself. This happened on the set of the film, where Faina Georgievna was offered the role of a priest who talked to birds and pigs. Having no alternative, the actress was forced to agree to such “roles.”

Nervous Mulya

The pre-war film “Foundling,” about a lost girl who is looked after by numerous kind people throughout the action, was not a special film masterpiece. I am completely sure that without Ranevskaya’s participation, “Foundling” would have gone unnoticed. Faina Georgievna played a small role in this film as Lelya, an eccentric and capricious woman who is always pushed around by her klutz husband. Catchphrase from the film: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous!” became so popular among the people that it haunted the actress until her last days. The most interesting thing is that Ranevskaya herself was called Mulya, although in the film that was the name of her unlucky husband. One day, a kindergarten group led by a teacher was walking down the street towards the actress. The kids, seeing the famous artist, began vying with each other to shout: “Mulya, Mulya!” Faina Georgievna became seriously angry and said: “Children, go to ****!” The children fell silent in fear, and the teacher, shaking her head, remarked: “Very pedagogical, Comrade Ranevskaya!”

Faina Georgievna always had a creative approach to any film role, regardless of its size. Ranevskaya was cramped within the narrow confines of the script, so during filming, characteristic phrases arose during the process of improvisation. In the same “Foundling” the artist found many interesting expressions that help to more fully reveal the image of the grumpy Lelya. Such an informal approach greatly enriched the roles played by Ranevskaya not only in cinema, but also in the theater.

Sharp tongue

All of Ranevskaya’s acquaintances and friends knew that it was better for her not to get caught in the tongue, since it “was fraught”: the great actress was not very shy in her expressions, and her brilliant phrases immediately became catchphrases and “flew away” among the people. The most interesting thing is that Faina Georgievna did not invent anything on purpose - simply aphorism was the essence of the great actress. There is a huge number of witty statements said or allegedly said by Ranevskaya. Here are just a few episodes from this large collection.

– You are a kind person, you won’t refuse.
“There are two people in me,” answered Faina Georgievna.
- The good one cannot refuse, but the second one can. The second one is on duty today.

At the Theater. Mossovet Okhlopkov staged “Crime and Punishment”. It was at this time that Gennady Bortnikov happened to go to France and meet Dostoevsky’s daughter there. Once, while having lunch at the theater buffet, he enthusiastically told his colleagues about meeting the writer’s daughter and how much she looked like her father:

– You won’t believe it, friends, the absolute portrait resemblance, well, just one face!

Ranevskaya, who was sitting right there, raised her head from her plate and asked casually:
- And with a beard?

Ranevskaya stood in her dressing room completely naked and smoked. Suddenly, the managing director of the Theater named after her came in without knocking. Moscow City Council Valentin Shkolnikov. And he froze in shock. Faina Georgievna calmly asked:

“Aren’t you shocked that I smoke?”

A famous actress screamed hysterically at a troupe meeting:

“I know you’re just waiting for my death so you can come and spit on my grave!”

- I hate standing in line.

Ranevskaya recalled that at the rest home where she had recently been, they announced a competition for the shortest story. The theme is love, but there are a number of conditions: the story must mention God and the queen, there must be a mystery and a little sex. The first prize was awarded to a story consisting of one phrase: “Oh, God,” exclaimed the queen. “I seem to be pregnant and I don’t know from whom!”

During the war, there was a shortage of many products, including chicken eggs. To prepare scrambled eggs and omelets, they used egg powder, which the Americans supplied to Russia under Lend-Lease. People were distrustful of this product, so the press constantly published articles stating that the powder was very useful, while natural eggs, on the contrary, were very harmful. The war ended, food appeared, and eggs began to appear on the shelves more and more often. One fine day, several newspapers published articles claiming that natural eggs are very healthy and nutritious. They say that that evening Ranevskaya called her friends and said: “Congratulations, my dears! The eggs have been rehabilitated.”

Eternal loneliness

Unfortunately, the great actress did not have a good personal life: she was never married. Despite the large circle of acquaintances, Faina Georgievna always felt loneliness, from which even the devoted dog Boy, named after Stanislavsky, whom Ranevskaya idolized, could not save. Taking advantage of the actress’s gullibility and naivety, the housekeepers deceived her in the most unscrupulous way, vilely robbing the old woman. Some took the causticity of her statements for a bile nature, but in fact it was only a defense against a cruel and unfair world.

Epilogue

Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya lived a long and eventful life. In cinema, her great gift was not fully used. After all, 25 film roles, and even then mostly episodic, cannot be considered an appropriate use of such talent. The theatrical career was more successful, although, for example, with the director of the Theater. Faina Georgievna had a difficult relationship with Yuri Zavadsky from the Moscow City Council. Once in his hearts the director shouted to the actress:

- Get out of the theater!

To this the great Ranevskaya answered with no less pathos:

- Get out of art!

She had almost no friends, with the possible exception of the poetess Anna Akhmatova. In the last years of her life, the actress was ill, but until her last days she remained in action, as this spurred her on and did not allow her to relax. Ranevskaya also had a great literary gift. Even from the few miniatures remaining in the actress’s archive, one can judge her great talent. Faina Georgievna felt the word very subtly and masterfully mastered it. She especially organically managed to convey, or rather, parody, the style of the so-called letters to the editor. Here is a letter allegedly written to the once famous journalist Tatyana Tess:

“You don’t know me, dear Tatyana Grigorievna. My last name is Usyuskin, on my mother’s side I come from the family of Kafinkin, my now deceased uncle. While sorting out my uncle's property, a letter was found where the deceased asks to convey greetings and gratitude to you for your attention to various kinds of phenomena of our happy reality due to the problems that are taking place. Not long before his death, my uncle (may he rest in heaven) put an end to his bourgeois past and joined the party, where he was a member with a capital letter. I am also a member at my uncle's request. Current reality has revealed great achievements with your participation in public life where you show the significance of what is happening on the basis of the growth of our consciousness. Thank you for the moral significance of the events.

I remain devoted to you Usyuskin.”

Unfortunately, Faina Georgievna did not write memoirs, although she, of course, had something to tell. But a lot has been written about Ranevskaya herself. For example, Vitaly Vulf and Gleb Skorokhodov wrote about the great actress. And the Zakharov publishing house published the book “Faina Ranevskaya. Incidents, jokes, aphorisms." The actress is not forgotten by her hometown of Taganrog, where some of her belongings and archives are kept in the Museum of Local Lore. And on August 29, 1986, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where the great actress was born.

“Talent is uncertainty and painful dissatisfaction with oneself and one’s shortcomings, which I have never encountered in mediocrity.”
F.G. Ranevskaya.

Faina Georgievna's real name is Feldman. The great actress was born on August 27, 1896 in the city of Taganrog. Her father, Girshi Khaimovich, was a wealthy merchant, owner of a store and a dry paint factory, had several houses, as well as the steamship “St. Nicholas”. All this provided the family with a comfortable existence. The Feldman family had five children: two girls (the youngest Faina and the eldest Isabella) and three boys. Faina's younger brother, Lazar, died when she was five years old.

In her parents' house, the future actress felt lost and lonely. Partly, this was due to the fact that she stuttered, partly from her increased vulnerability and difficult relationship with her father. It is known that Girshi Khaimovich said about his child: “Our Fanechka is far from beautiful, and besides, she stutters. Poor child."

In 1904, the parents sent their youngest daughter to the famous Mariinsky Gymnasium for girls. The young schoolgirl studied poorly; the hardest thing for Faina Feldman was arithmetic. After finishing elementary school with difficulty, she began to ask her father to allow her to be home-schooled. Her further education was typical for children of wealthy families of that time - the main emphasis was on singing, music and foreign languages. However, since childhood, the future actress loved to read, and at the age of fourteen she became interested in theater. Faina attended all the city performances; the play based on Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” staged by Stanislavsky had the greatest impression on her. It is curious that Faina Georgievna later chose her pseudonym after the surname of one of the heroines of the play.

Soon the young girl firmly decided to become an actress. To do this, she began studying in a private theater studio. Her main goal was to overcome stuttering. Also in classes, Faina Georgievna studied stage speech and learned how to move correctly. Her parents, Girshi Khaimovich and Milka Rafailovna, were lenient towards their daughter’s hobby, but only until she announced that she seriously wanted to become a professional actress. A major scandal broke out in the house. However, Faina Georgievna was adamant in her decision, and in 1915 she went to Moscow alone to continue studying acting.

The girl’s dreams were not destined to come true so easily. She was not accepted into any of the capital’s theater schools “due to inability.” Then Faina Georgievna began to visit a private establishment. There was a catastrophic lack of money to pay, and Ranevskaya had to abandon this attempt to become an actress. In difficult times, she met Ekaterina Geltser. The meeting took place at the columns of the Bolshoi Theater, where many fans of the famous ballerina had gathered in anticipation of their idol. Smiling, Ekaterina Vasilievna asked: “Who is the coldest here?” Faina Georgievna turned out to be the coldest. Subsequently, Geltser introduced her to many of her friends - famous figures of art and culture of that era, among whom were: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva. Together they went to the Moscow Art Theater for performances, Ekaterina Vasilievna helped Ranevskaya get a job as an extra at the Summer Theater in the village of Malakhovka, ten kilometers from Moscow. For Faina Georgievna it was a great happiness to be next to the most popular actors: Marius Petipa, Olga Sadovskaya, Illarion Pevtsov. By the way, it was Illarion Nikolaevich who first predicted that Ranevskaya would become an outstanding actress.

In 1916, after the end of the theater season, Faina Georgievna was left without work. Thus began her wanderings around various provincial theaters. Ranevskaya visited Kerch, Feodosia, Kislovodsk and Rostov-on-Don. The mother sent money transfers to her daughter in secret from her father. And in 1917, the wealthy Jewish Feldman family was forced to flee a revolution that did not promise anything good for them. They decided to emigrate on their own ship. Together with their parents, their son Yakov set off on the journey (the second son, Rudolf, served as a white officer and died during the Civil War), but the youngest daughter categorically refused to go abroad - Ranevskaya could not bear to part with her beloved homeland. She wrote about the moment of separation: “Mom cried, so did I, but I couldn’t change my decision. I was scared and in excruciating pain, but I was stubborn like a telegraph pole. And finally, I was left alone without any means of subsistence.” Years later, the actress spoke about the reasons for her stubbornness: “I stayed for two reasons: I couldn’t imagine my life without the theater, and the Russian theater is the best in the world. But this is not the main thing. How can you leave the land where Pushkin is buried, where every breath of the wind is filled with the talent and suffering of your ancestors!”

In 1918, in Rostov-on-Don, Faina Georgievna met Pavel Wulf, a woman who became her faithful friend and mentor for the rest of her life. In those years, Pavel Leontyevna was already a famous provincial actress. She recalled how once after a performance a “red-haired awkward girl” burst into her dressing room, immediately beginning to show her admiration and ask for help in becoming an actress. Irritated by this stranger’s behavior, Wulf recommended that she learn any role of her own choosing from the proposed play. Ranevskaya gave preference to the character of an Italian.

In order to avoid failure and knowing full well that this was her only chance, Faina Georgievna found an Italian baker in the city and diligently rehearsed with him for more than a week. When she performed in front of Wulf, she quickly realized that she had met real talent. At that time, her troupe was going to Crimea, and there was no way to accommodate Ranevskaya. And then Pavel Leontievna made the only possible decision - she took the girl to her place. From then on, Faina Georgievna was both her student and a full member of the family. Ranevskaya said: “I would not have become an actress without her support. She taught me to be humane. She taught me to work, work and work…. No gatherings with jokes, wine and fornication, no late-night gatherings with the acting fraternity... She took me to museums to see what for me created the meaning of existence. She forbade simply reading books, she gave a taste of the best in world literature.” Having become famous, Faina Georgievna did not tolerate comments from anyone except Wulf, and only trusted her fully. Ranevskaya adored Alexei Shcheglov, the grandson of Pavla Leontyevna, and affectionately called him “ersatz grandson.” Pavel Wulf died in 1961 in the arms of Ranevskaya, for whom her death was a great shock - she even quit smoking, although for fifty years of her life she could not do without a cigarette.

The terrible years of the Civil War found Faina Georgievna in Crimea. The power here was constantly changing, Crimea was moving from whites to reds, from Makhnovists to greens, and it was impossible to guess what would happen tomorrow. Memories of those difficult days, of hunger and endless reprisals haunted the actress all her life. Largely because of this, she subsequently could not finish her memoirs, eventually tearing up all the notebooks with notes. The truth was too scary, and she didn’t want to lie. Faina Georgievna said: “There was hell in Crimea. We went to the theater and tried not to step on the dead. We lived in a monastery cell, the monastery itself was empty - from hunger, from cholera, from typhus.”

Pavla Wulf’s family managed to survive during these years thanks in large part to the help of the wonderful Russian playwright Maximilian Voloshin. He came to them in the mornings with a small backpack on his back. There he had bread, small fish and castor oil, in which the fish were fried. Ranevskaya carried warm memories of Voloshin throughout her life: “I have never come across people of his intelligence, his knowledge, or some kind of unearthly kindness. He had a guilty smile, as if he always wanted to help someone. In his plump body there was the kindest soul, the most tender heart.”

At this time, some changes were outlined in Ranevskaya’s creative career. Through the efforts of Pavla Leontievna, she was accepted into the Actor's Theater, directed by Pavel Rudin. Faina Georgievna's debut was the role of Margarita Cavallini in the play "Roman". Then she played in the plays “Guilty Without Guilt”, “The Last Victim”, “The Thunderstorm”. One of the best was her performance as Charlotte in The Cherry Orchard. In 1925, Ranevskaya and Wulf were accepted into the traveling Theater of the Moscow Department of Public Education. Unfortunately, this work was short-lived - the theater closed, and the girls again had to return to the province. Again there was a change of troupes, they worked in the theaters of Baku, Smolensk, Stalingrad and Arkhangelsk. Their wanderings continued until Ranevskaya sent a letter to Alexander Tairov, director of the Chamber Theater in Moscow. She became an artist of this theater in 1931, it was then that the “Moscow” period of her life, as well as her cinematic career, began.

Ranevskaya’s film debut took place in 1934 in the film “Pyshka” by Mikhail Romm, based on Maupassant’s novella. Subsequently, Romm, then just beginning his career, became the actress’s favorite director. She wrote: “I have never met such a friendly teacher-director. His tips and advice were necessary and accurate. I have forever retained my gratitude to Mikhail Ilyich for the help he gave me in working on the role...” Faina Georgievna received the role of Madame Loiseau, and played it superbly. The popular writer Romain Rolland, who came to the Soviet Union, saw the film and was delighted with it, and among the actors, he first of all singled out Ranevskaya. He asked to show the film in France, and “Donut” was also a huge success there. By the way, the picture was silent, however, in order to feel her role, Ranevskaya learned all the phrases of her heroine in the original language. The filming conditions were also difficult - the temperature in the pavilions was like in freezers, Faina Georgievna suffered from unusual fuss and noise, and constant chaos. At the end of filming, Ranevskaya decided never to appear in films again, however, fortunately for the audience, she did not keep her promise.

In her youth, Faina Georgievna was a passionate fan of actor Vasily Kachalov. Soon after she met this talented actor, they became good friends. Knowing her desire to get a job at the Art Theater, Kachalov organized Ranevskaya a meeting with its founder Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Before the long-awaited conversation, the actress was very worried. After Vladimir Ivanovich informed Ranevskaya that he was thinking about including her in the theater troupe, Faina Georgievna jumped up from her chair and rushed to thank the master. Excited, she mixed up his name and patronymic: “Dear Vasily Stepanovich, I am so touched.” Already realizing that something was wrong, Ranevskaya burst into tears and, without saying goodbye, ran out of the office. Kachalov, having learned about what had happened, went to Nemirovich-Danchenko, asking to see the actress again. But the director answered Vasily Ivanovich: “No, don’t ask. She is, excuse me, abnormal. I'm afraid of her."

In 1935, due to a lack of roles, Faina Georgievna left the troupe of the Chamber Theater and moved to the Central Theater of the Red Army. Here she had the opportunity to play the main character of Gorky’s play “Vassa Zheleznova”, then Oksana in “The Death of the Squadron” based on Korneychuk’s play and a matchmaker in the play “The Last Victim” based on Ostrovsky. And in 1937, Ranevskaya was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the USSR. In 1939 she received an offer from the Maly Theater. They didn’t want to let her leave her old place, but for Faina Georgievna it was a great honor to perform on the stage where Ermolova herself once played. With a scandal, she left the Red Army Theater, however, as it soon became clear, the elders of the Maly Theater opposed the arrival of a new actress, and Ranevskaya was left without work.

Fortunately, at that time she was in demand in films. Faina Georgievna immediately starred in three films: “The Man in a Case”, “The Cochin Engineer’s Mistake” and “The Foundling”. The role of a self-confident lady from the last film gave Ranevskaya nationwide love. For Tatiana Lukashevich's comedy, the actress independently came up with a number of phrases. One: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous!” - then haunted her all her life. Many people, meeting Faina Georgievna, jokingly told her words that, in theory, were intended for her henpecked husband, and not for the heroine Ranevskaya herself. This irritated the actress, who subsequently hated the role that brought her popularity. It is known that in 1976, Leonid Brezhnev, presenting Faina Georgievna with the Order of Lenin, instead of greeting, shouted: “Mulya, don’t irritate me!” Ranevskaya instantly responded: “Leonid Ilyich, either hooligans or boys address me this way.” Embarrassed, the Secretary General only said: “Forgive me, I love you very much.”

In his youth, Sergei Eisenstein gave Ranevskaya one piece of advice, which later played a huge role in her life. The famous director said: “You will die, Faina, if you don’t find a way to demand attention to yourself, to force others to obey your will. If you disappear, you won’t become an actress!” Ranevskaya learned these words well - Eisenstein himself became convinced of this a few years later. The director wanted to cast Faina Georgievna in his film “Ivan the Terrible”. However, the actress did not pass the screen test; Cinematography Minister Ivan Bolshakov said: “Ranevskaya’s Semitic facial features appear very clearly, especially in close-ups.” Having learned that the role for which she had enthusiastically prepared did not go to her, Faina Georgievna got angry and said: “I’d rather sell my ass’s skin than act in Eisenstein’s films.” When the director learned about the actress’s words, he immediately sent her an enthusiastic telegram: “So, how is the sale going?” It is curious that, in the end, the role of Ranevskaya in the film was played by actress Serafima Birman, who also has Jewish roots. It is quite possible that nationality was not the reason for Ranevskaya’s refusal, but completely different motives that remained unknown. Be that as it may, the leaders of the Soviet people highly valued Faina Georgievna’s performance. Joseph Vissarionovich said: “A good actor, Comrade Zharov, glues sideburns, mustaches, puts on beards, but you can still see right away that this is Zharov. But Ranevskaya doesn’t stick anything to herself and is always different.”

In 1940, Mikhail Romm invited Ranevskaya to star in another film - the drama “Dream”. Faina Georgievna managed to brilliantly play Madame Rosa Skorokhod - a stingy owner of furnished rooms, who, however, was not alien to compassion and pity. At the very beginning of the war, Faina Georgievna, along with the entire Wulf family, was evacuated to Tashkent. There she remained until 1943. During the evacuation, the actress met Anna Akhmatova. They became friends, and Ranevskaya called the famous poetess “Rabenka” or “Rabe” for her responsiveness and wisdom. Their worldview was similar in many ways, and two more women were united by a passionate love for Alexander Pushkin. The close relationship between the great poetess and the great actress continued after the war. When Faina Georgievna came to Leningrad, she always visited Anna Andreevna outside the city. After the death of the latter, Ranevskaya said: “They ask me why I don’t write anything about Akhmatova, we were friends... I answer - I don’t write, because I love her very much.”

Returning from evacuation in 1943, Ranevskaya got a job at the Drama Theater. This was followed by several film roles, including Mom from “The Wedding.” While filming the film, director Annensky managed to gather on one set the best actors of that time: Mikhail Pugovkin, Alexei Gribov, Sergei Martinson, Vera Maretskaya and many others. The film wittily ridiculed human vices and showed the negative sides of bourgeois life. The images taken from life were loved by the audience, many phrases of “Wedding” became catchphrases. However, Faina Georgievna herself was critical of this work; she believed that the director had altered Chekhov’s prose too much, and the talented actors were unable to show everything they were capable of.

In 1947, the comedy “Spring” with the inimitable Lyubov Orlova and Nikolai Cherkasov was released. The tiny episode assigned to the heroine Ranevskaya was composed by the actress herself - the director of the film, Grigory Alexandrov, allowed her to create a role for herself. Together with Rostislav Plyatt, she brought entertaining comedic phrases into the film, and as a result, their couple was remembered even more than the leading actors. At the same time, Faina Georgievna starred as the Stepmother in the famous fairy tale “Cinderella”. Screenwriter Evgeny Schwartz, who was extremely sensitive to any unnecessary words, also allowed her to come up with the texts herself. The negative character portrayed by her turned out to be so charming and believable that she has been pleasing viewers of different generations for more than half a century. Soviet writer Gleb Skorokhodov wrote: “In Stepmother Ranevskaya, despite the luxurious medieval clothes, people recognized a colleague, a quarrelsome neighbor, just an acquaintance who introduced her own dictatorship in the family.” By the way, this work was one of the few that Ranevskaya was truly pleased with. In the same year, the actress received the Order of the Badge of Honor and the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR.

During her life, Ranevskaya changed many theaters and always for different reasons. She said: “I had the opportunity to live with many theaters, but I never got any pleasure.” Not a single theater ever gave her the role she had been waiting for all her life. When she was old, Faina Georgievna often repeated: “I have 45 minutes left to live. When will they finally give me an interesting role?” One day she was offered to play a small role of an elderly actress in the play “Dinner at Senlis” by Jean Anouilh. Ranevskaya expressed her opinion to Marina Neelova: “Imagine that a hungry person is offered a monpensier. Did you understand me?".

In 1949, Faina Georgievna moved from the Drama Theater to the Mossovet Theater. At that time, they mainly showed boring productions dedicated to Soviet holidays. With great difficulty, she was persuaded to play the old woman in “Dawn over Moscow.” Ranevskaya turned the role into a “cabbage”; every time she appeared on stage she received a hail of applause. Even more stunning was her appearance in the play “Storm,” staged in 1954. From the insignificant role of Manka the Speculator, Faina Georgievna created a masterpiece. The secret of success lay in two points: Ranevskaya independently came up with the entire text and very accurately conveyed this grotesque image. Her character was the most striking in the entire performance; many spectators came to see it only for Ranevskaya. Some of them left the auditorium immediately after the scene with the participation of the great actress, which infuriated the theater director Zavadsky, who subsequently achieved the exclusion of her character from the play. Of course, this, in turn, did not suit Faina Georgievna, and therefore in 1955 she moved to the old Chamber Theater, which by that time had changed its name to the Pushkin Theater. Here she began her “metropolitan” career many years ago, but by that time not a trace remained of the old order. After working there for eight years, Ranevskaya returned to the unloved Zavadsky.

There are many stories about the difficult relationship between Ranevskaya and the main director of the Mossovet Theater. The actress considered him an untalented, overly fussy person. The director, knowing this, also tried in every possible way to annoy her. One day he shouted to her from the audience: “Faina, with your antics you have devoured all my plans.” The actress retorted: “That’s why I feel like I’m full of s—.” Struck by her audacity, Zavadsky said: “Get out of the theater,” to which Ranevskaya, approaching the front of the stage, replied: “Get out of art.” According to some reports, not only her, but also the host of the entire troupe, Lyubov Orlova, was “pushed” into the theater. Preference was given to Vera Maretskaya, who was the wife of Yuri Zavadsky. At the end of her life, Orlova wrote to Faina Georgievna: “We behaved incorrectly. We had to make a scandal, yell, complain to the Ministry.... But our character is not the same. Dignity does not allow.” Nevertheless, Zavadsky remained the object of Ranevskaya’s barbs for a long time. She called him a “senile entertainer”, “a discounted Meyerhold”, “a perpetuum of Kabbalah”, and with a sad face she remarked: “There is a director in the family.” Her note has been preserved: “I would enthusiastically punch the hacks in the faces, but I endure it. I tolerate lies, I tolerate ignorance, I tolerate a miserable existence, I tolerate and will endure until the end of my life. I even tolerate Zavadsky.”

In 1960, the actress played the main role in the film “Beware, Grandma!” Nadezhda Kosheverova. The film turned out to be a failure, Ranevskaya took it as an insult and quarreled with the director. In her words: “Starting in a bad film is the same as spitting into eternity!”

It is curious that five years later Kosheverova again invited the aged actress to star in her next work, “Today is a new attraction.” Faina Georgievna agreed, but remembering the old conflict, put forward a long list of conditions to the director, among which she, playing the role of the circus director, was not supposed to have contact with animals, get to the filming location only in a separate compartment, live in a hotel overlooking the Russian Museum, etc. .d. Nadezhda Kosheverova agreed, but in fact most of the conditions were never fulfilled.

When talking about Faina Ranevskaya, it is necessary to note her extremely difficult relationships with her colleagues. They talked all sorts of things about her: some artists complained about her willfulness and unbearable character, others adored her and sincerely admired her. One thing is certain - she was not one of those people who is embarrassed to tell the truth to someone's face. Ranevskaya’s statements became the basis of more than one collection of aphorisms; only she could so sarcasticly and aptly reflect reality. Many colleagues were seriously afraid of becoming the object of her barbs. But in fact, Faina Georgievna was an extremely vulnerable person, understanding and sympathetic. Her sharp humor was a kind of protection from the surrounding reality. Close people knew very well that behind the caustic phrases and external malice, the kind heart of a sympathetic person was hidden. Since childhood, the actress was haunted by various doubts and fears, and at first glance, capricious antics were often dictated by necessity. Ranevskaya, for example, was afraid of closed and open spaces; she traveled only by taxi, because she could not bring herself to take the metro. All her life she worried about her appearance, and in her youth, oddly enough, she had stage fright and even turned to doctors who helped her develop her own method of self-hypnosis.

Being at an age, Ranevskaya once brought the young actress Iya Savvina to tears with her nagging. In the evening she called her, sincerely apologized and said: “I’m lonely, all my friends are dead, my whole life is work... I envied you, the ease with which you work. I work hard, I am haunted by fears of the future audience, of the stage, of my partners... All these are not whims, this is fear. It’s not from pride - not from lack of success, not from failure, I’m afraid, but - how can I explain? “This is my life, and how terrible it is to misuse it.”

Faina Georgievna often said to herself: “I’m an everyday fool.” Household chores were real hard labor for her. To save herself from the endless struggle with washing, ironing and cleaning, which were unbearable for her, the actress always had to keep housekeepers and spend a huge part of her salary on them. The latter were not always found to be conscientious - it happened that valuable things disappeared from Ranevskaya’s apartment, which was already poor. However, there were also decent girls. The brightest of the actress's many au pair assistants was Elizaveta - a resourceful and determined girl. When she got married, Ranevskaya bought her a luxurious bed, although she herself slept on an ottoman all her life. In general, this was a feature of her character - wanting to please a person, giving away things that she herself did not have. She also had a strange relationship with money - Ranevskaya’s salary was instantly scattered for taxi rides, housekeepers, gifts for friends and good acquaintances. The actress said: “Money gets in the way when it’s not there, as well as when it is there.” They said that when Faina Georgievna received her first fee for filming, the stack of bills scared her very much. She went to her theater, where she began asking everyone she met if they needed money to purchase anything. Afterwards she reproached herself, but not for not keeping anything for herself, but for giving away the money to the wrong people. There is also a phrase from the actress’s notebook: “It’s three o’clock in the morning... I can’t sleep, I’m thinking about where to get money for a vacation. I searched all my pockets, rummaged through all the papers and did not find anything resembling banknotes...”

Faina Georgievna did not find happiness in her personal life; she had neither children nor her own family. She said: “I didn’t like everyone who loved me. And those I loved, they didn’t love me.” However, Ranevskaya clearly did not have any complexes regarding gender relations - among the actress’s aphorisms there are many that relate to women and men. Very few stories about Ranevskaya's novels have survived. There were rumors about her meetings with Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin. They met in Kislovodsk in the mid-40s. Without the slightest irony, so characteristic of her, with tenderness Faina Georgievna told her family about this man. However, there is no evidence of the novel as such; maybe it was just a friendship, which, unfortunately, did not last long - Tolbukhin died in 1949. Already in her old age, Ranevskaya said: “When I was twenty, I only thought about love. Now I just like to think.”

The actress had no luck with housing for a long time. In 1948, the Wulf family moved to Khoroshevka, located far from the center. Ranevskaya was left alone in a communal apartment on Staropimenovsky Lane. The window of her room was blocked by the wall of a nearby building, as a result of which the room was dark even during the day. Later, Faina Georgievna received an apartment on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. There, its windows looked out onto the courtyard, where during the day, constantly swearing, the loaders unloaded grain vans, and in the evening the crowds who came out of the Illusion walked noisily. On this occasion, Ranevskaya said: “I live above bread and circuses.” In 1969, the actress moved to the “quiet center” - a sixteen-story building on Bolshoi Palashevsky Lane. Here she was much better - a good apartment, a theater nearby, guests often came. Her “ersatz grandson” Alexey Shcheglov and his wife helped her move.

In the sixties, Faina Georgievna, albeit for a short time, was not alone. Relatives found her, and in 1957 she was even able to go to her mother in Romania. And soon her sister came to her from emigration. Isabella Allen lived in Paris for many years, then moved to Turkey. When her husband died, she, with the assistance of the Minister of Culture Furtseva, returned to the USSR. The sisters began to live together. Isabella was very surprised that Faina Georgievna - winner of many state awards - lives so modestly: no dacha, no car, meager furnishings in the apartment. They lived together for several years, and then Isabella was diagnosed with cancer. Ranevskaya found the best doctors and spent nights at the patient’s bedside. However, nothing helped, and in 1964 she died.

In 1970, Ranevskaya delighted the youngest television viewers - in the cartoon “Carlson is Back,” the charming housekeeper Miss Bok spoke in the voice of Faina Georgievna. Also on television screens, residents of our country saw Ranevskaya in the television version of the play “Next - Silence.” For thirteen years this production of the Mossovet Theater enjoyed audience success. And in October 1983, Faina Georgievna left the stage forever - the actress’s health became too weak. She left casually, without speeches or farewells, simply notifying the theater director of her decision.

Over many years of creative work, Faina Georgievna has not played a single leading role from the world repertoire. Ranevskaya often repeated that she was unable to fully fulfill her destiny: “I am well aware that I am talented, but what have I created? She squeaked and that’s all... I was born under-detected and am leaving life under-detected.” However, popular love claims the opposite. The number of her screen and stage works is not large, but what kind of work they are! The episodic characters she played are etched into the viewer’s memory much more strongly than the leading roles. Her life credo was the phrase: “I don’t recognize the word “play.” They play cards, checkers, and at horse races. You need to live on stage." Faina Georgievna often recalled the words spoken to her by a saleswoman from whom she bought cigarettes: “We love you very much. You look at your roles, at you, and you forget your own troubles. For rich people, of course, you can find more luxurious artists, but for our class, you are just what we need!” Ranevskaya really liked this assessment of creativity. In 1992, one English encyclopedia included Ranevskaya among the ten most outstanding servants of Melpomene who lived in the twentieth century.

In her old age, Faina Georgievna was very lonely, despite constant visits from friends. She joked about this: “Old age is the time when the candles on a birthday cake are more expensive than the cake itself, and half of all urine is spent on tests” and “Loneliness, as a condition, cannot be treated.” The actress's only joy was her dog, whom she called Boy. The boy was an ordinary mongrel who was found on the street barely alive with broken paws and rescued. Left alone, the dog began to howl terribly and, nevertheless, was dearly loved by its owner.
In the spring of 1984, Ranevskaya was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and a suspicion of a third heart attack. And in the summer she fell and broke her hip. Terrible pain haunted her until the last days of her life. On July 19, the great actress died and was buried next to her sister in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery.

Based on materials from the book by A.V. Shcheglova “Faina Ranevskaya. All Life" and the weekly publication "History in Women's Portraits" issue No. 4, 2013

Aphorisms and quotes from Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya from the site

“I’ll waste the money, but the shame will remain” - Ranevskaya’s answer to the offer to star in some film.

Ranevskaya got stuck in an elevator with some man, and when an hour later the doors were opened for them (a crowd of people had gathered), she came out and told him: “After everything that happened between us, you simply have to marry me.” The comedy of the situation is that “some man” was young Gennady Bortnikov, wildly popular at that time. Well, the Great One at that time was already far beyond...

“Old age is when it’s not bad dreams that bother you, but bad reality.”

“Health is when you have pain in a different place every day.”

“I can't eat meat. It walked, loved, looked... Maybe I'm a psychopath? No, I consider myself a normal psychopath. But I can’t eat meat.”

“If you want to sit on your neck, spread your legs!”

“Sclerosis cannot be cured, but it can be forgotten.”

“I feel, but not well.”

"Beautiful people shit too."

“Only the brain, the ass and the pill have a soulmate. And I’m whole from the beginning.”

"Optimism is a lack of information."

Ranevskaya invites you to visit and warns that the bell does not work: “When you arrive, knock your feet.” “Why with your feet, Faina Georgievna?” “But you’re not going to come empty-handed!”

“Family replaces everything. Therefore, before you get one, you should think about what is more important to you: everything or family.”

“To gain recognition one must, even must, die.”

“I hate cynicism for its general availability.”

“If I often looked into Gioconda’s eyes, I would go crazy: she knows everything about me, but I know nothing about her.”

“Lesbianism, homosexuality, masochism, sadism are not perversions,” Ranevskaya sternly explains. “Actually, there are only two perversions: field hockey and ice ballet.”

Explaining to someone why the condom was white, Ranevskaya said: “Because white makes you look fat.”

“It’s amazing,” Ranevskaya said thoughtfully. - When I was 20 years old, I only thought about love. Now I only like to think.”

At the same evening, Ranevskaya was asked: “Which women, in your opinion, are prone to greater fidelity: brunettes or blondes?” Without hesitation, she answered: “Grey hair!”

“You won’t believe it, Faina Georgievna, but no one except the groom has kissed me yet.” - “Are you bragging, my dear, or are you complaining?”

Radio Committee employee N. constantly experienced drama because of her love relationship with a colleague, whose name was Sima: either she cried because of another quarrel, then he left her, or she had an abortion from him. Ranevskaya called her “HeraSima’s victim.”

Dotting the i’s, the interlocutor asks Ranevskaya: “So you want to say, Faina Georgievna, that N. and R. live as husband and wife?” - "No. Much better,” she replied.

“Lyubov Petrovna Orlova has so many furs in her closet that a moth will never learn to fly.”

“Faina,” asks her old friend, “do you think medicine is making progress?” - “But of course. When I was young, I had to take off my clothes every time I visited a doctor, but now it’s enough to show my tongue.”

Ranevskaya once said that according to the results of a study conducted among two thousand modern women, it turned out that twenty percent, that is, every fifth, does not wear panties. “For mercy, Faina Georgievna, where could they have printed this here?” - “Nowhere.” I received the data personally from a salesperson in a shoe store.”

“A woman, to succeed in life, must have two qualities. She must be smart enough to please stupid men, and stupid enough to please smart men."

Ranevskaya stood in her makeup room completely naked. And she smoked. Suddenly, the managing director of the Mossovet Theater, Valentin Shkolnikov, entered her without knocking. And he froze in shock. Faina Georgievna calmly asked: “I hope I didn’t shock you by smoking Belomor.”

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke anymore, and I never cheated on my husband because I never had one,” Ranevskaya said, anticipating the journalist’s possible questions. “So,” the journalist continues, “it means you don’t have any shortcomings at all?” “In general, no,” Ranevskaya answered modestly but with dignity. And after a short pause she added: “True, I have a big ass, and sometimes I lie a little!”

“For a number of reasons, I cannot now answer you in the words you use. But I sincerely hope that when you return home, your mother will jump out of the gateway and bite you properly.”

“If a patient really wants to live, doctors are powerless.”

“My favorite disease is scabies: I scratch it and want more. And the most hated thing is hemorrhoids: you can’t see it for yourself, you can’t show it to people.”

“A real man is a man who remembers exactly a woman’s birthday and never knows how old she is. A man who never remembers a woman’s birthday, but knows exactly how old she is, is her husband.”

“Well, this one, what’s her name... So broad-shouldered in the backside...”

“Spelling errors in writing are like a bug on a white blouse.”

“Loneliness is a state that you have no one to tell about.”

“Oh, these obnoxious journalists! Half the lies they spread about me are not true."

“Let this be a small gossip that must disappear between us.”

“The fairy tale is when he married a frog, and she turned out to be a princess. But reality is when it’s the other way around.”

“Starting in a bad movie is like spitting into eternity.”

“The union of a stupid man and a stupid woman gives birth to a heroine mother. The union of a stupid woman and a smart man gives birth to a single mother. The union of a smart woman and a stupid man gives rise to an ordinary family. The union of a smart man and a smart woman gives rise to light flirting.”

“Madam, could you change me a hundred dollars?” - “Alas! But thank you for the compliment!”

"What I do? I’m feigning health.”

“So that we can see how much we are overeating, our stomach is located on the same side as our eyes.”

"I hate you. Wherever I go, everyone looks around and says: “Look, it’s Mulya, don’t make me nervous, she’s coming.” (From a conversation with Agnia Barto).

“There are people in whom God lives; There are people in whom the devil lives; And there are people that live only worms".

“I spent my entire life swimming in the toilet butterfly style.”

“Faina Georgievna, how are you?” - “Do you know, my dear, what shit is? So it’s like jam compared to my life.”

“How is your life, Faina Georgievna?” - “I told you last year that it’s shit. But then it was marzipan.”

“Critics are Amazons in menopause.”

About director Zavadsky: “Perpetuum male.” About him: “B in a cap.”

“Get out of art!” - a response to Zavadsky’s shout to the subject “Get out of the theater!”

“I’m like an old palm tree at a train station - no one needs me, but it’s a shame to throw it away.”

“I spoke for a long time and unconvincingly, as if I was talking about the friendship of peoples.”

(in response to the director’s phrase: “Faina, you devoured my entire script with your antics!”) “I feel like I’ve eaten enough shit.”

Once they tried to explain to her Archimedes’ law: “Well, that’s why, when you get into a bathtub full of water, the water pours over the edge?” Ranevskaya, looking down - “That’s because I have a fat ass...”

(sniffing the smells in the stuffy, crowded bus) “It seems like someone got a second wind!”

“Eating alone, my dear, is as unnatural as shitting together!”

“Why are all women such fools?!”

Once while filming, Ranevskaya went to the toilet. She was gone for over an hour. The film crew had already begun to get seriously worried, when suddenly Faina Georgievna returned. In response to the questioning glances rushing in her direction, she loudly declared: “I would never have thought that such a small person could contain so much shit!”

One day Ranevskaya was presented with a set of expensive and scarce underwear on March 8th. Having carefully examined the gift, Faina Georgievna said: “My doctors will be happy.”

“I’m like eggs - I participate, but I don’t enter.”

“She says it’s like she’s pissing in a zinc bucket.”

“My funeral belongings,” Faina Georgievna said about her awards

“I talk in my sleep” - a response to the intelligence services who tried to recruit her

“I won’t play with this Flea anymore!” (an emotional statement to the director, in which she was referring to her stage partner Rostislav Plyatt)

To the question “Are you sick, Faina Georgievna?” she usually answered: “No, I just look like that.”

Somewhere after sixty, Ranevskaya decided to join the CPSU. To the question “Faina Georgievna, why do you need this?!” she answered: “Well, at least before I die, I should know what that bitch Verka Maretskaya says about me at party meetings.”

There was and is not an actress in our cinema who could compete with her fame, popularity and unquenchable audience love. Every role she played became an invaluable gift for the public, almost every phrase uttered from the screen became a catchphrase. Today, August 27, 2011, 115 years have passed since the birth of Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya.

She was called the queen of the episode. In every film where Ranevskaya appeared, she eclipsed everyone else. And these films were remembered mainly due to the talent of Ranevskaya, who knew how to reveal the full depth of the character portrayed with one phrase or look. Suffice it to recall her Lyalya from “The Foundling” or a tiny episode from the film “Alexander Parkhomenko”, where she incomparably played the pianist from the tavern “Quiet Marina”, dragging out a romance with a bite of a cigarette and nuts. She didn’t play even thirty roles in films, but she did much more than other artists whose track records exceeded a hundred film works.

Beloved by millions of viewers and awarded with all kinds of awards and titles, including three Stalin Prizes, Ranevskaya doubted her gift all her life, although she did not show it. “Talent is self-doubt and painful dissatisfaction with oneself and one’s shortcomings, which I have never encountered in mediocrity,” the great actress used to say.

Ranevskaya made her film debut in Mikhail Romm's silent film Pyshka (1934), an amazing adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story. He also played her only dramatic role in the film “Dream” (1941), where Faina Georgievna played the role of the stingy owner of furnished rooms, Madame Rosa Skorokhod, merciless to everyone who is lower in status, and infinitely devoted to her loser son, for the sake of whom she sacrificed herself and humiliated herself all her life. Ranevskaya called filming a movie hard labor, but this time she was very pleased with the result. “In my entire long life, I have never experienced such joy either in the theater or in the cinema as at the time of our second meeting with Mikhail Ilyich,” the actress recalled. “I have never known or met such an attitude towards an actor—I’m not afraid to say a gentle word—such a benevolent director or teacher.”

Subsequently, Ranevskaya played only comedic and satirical roles in films. The popularity of the film “Foundling” (1939) with the famous phrase from the lips of the actress “Mule, don’t irritate me” played a cruel joke on her. Directors refused to give Ranevskaya dramatic roles, fearing that the audience would not perceive her in a different image. In the theater, without which Ranevskaya could not imagine her life, although she did not honor directors, inventing sarcastic nicknames for them, her fate was more successful. But she had a chance to play few leading roles here either. Among the most striking were Vassa Zheleznova in the play of the same name by Maxim Gorky (Red Army Theatre), the writer Murashkina from the dramatization of Chekhov’s story “Drama”, the speculator Manka from V.N. Bill-Belotserkovsky’s “Storm” (Mossovet Theatre, 1951), for the sake of episode with which the audience came to the performance. Ranevskaya's last works in the theater were the main roles in performances of the Theater. Mossovet "Strange Mrs. Savage" based on the play by J. Patrick (along with Ranevskaya, this role was played by Lyubov Orlova and Vera Maretskaya) and Lucy Cooper in the play "Next - Silence". Both roles were permeated with loneliness. Ranevskaya summed up her theatrical life: “Having slept with several theaters, I never got the pleasure.”

Possessing a difficult character, a sharp tongue, capable of bitterly offending a person, Ranevskaya had a difficult time getting along with people. But these same qualities, combined with rare sentimentality, freedom of thought and admiration for genuine talent, made the actress the author of numerous phrases - aphorisms passed down from generation to generation: “Beauty is a terrible force,” “Starting in a bad film is like spitting.” to eternity”, “Health is when you have pain in a different place every day”, “If a patient really wants to live, doctors are powerless” and many others.

Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya died on July 19, 1984. In the actress’s hometown of Taganrog, one of the streets is named after her; in 2008, Russia’s first monument to Ranevskaya was erected, and in the house where the incomparable Fufa (as she was called among her friends) was born, a museum is planned to open soon.