Honored Artist of the RSFSR. Winner of the Stalin Prize (1950, for the film The Fall of Berlin).
She was born on 19 May 1923. The daughter of the singer, people's artist of the RSFSR Olga Kovaleva (1881-1962).
Cinema, Theatre and the Life of Marina Kovalova.
Her eldest son Alexei lives with her family in America, the younger Teimuraz in Germany, and her daughter Olga in Georgia. The kids called her, but she didn't. It's foreign. .
The room of Marina Frantsevna is simple and cozy. Looking around, you immediately understand what a person lives: books, magazines, newspapers. The walls are hung with old photos. "This is my mother, Olga Vasilievna Kovaleva, People's Artist of the Republic, - the hostess shows one of them. This year marks the 125th anniversary of her birth. Mother at one time was a very famous performer of Russian folk songs, this generation is Yaunzem, Tretyakov. They were friends. After them there was already Ruslanova, and later Lyudmila Zykina. Mom has an amazing biography. I wrote a book about her. Long ago, in 1980, it came out. You can see it, Marina Frantsevna handed me a book.
The life story of Kovaleva Sr. is really unusual. A girl from the village of Lyubovki of the Saratov province at the age of 16 leaves her father’s home and goes to the city. Thanks to her unusual voice, she is taken to music school. She learns by making a living singing on the street. He graduated from the conservatory and became an opera singer. However, in the opera house she did not take root, colleagues treated her downright, what is it, they say, for a man ... And Mitrofan Pyatnitsky noticed her. So she got to Moscow. She performed with his choir and independently, becoming a popular favorite.
Father Marina Frantsevna - Franz Felixovich Ivanchuk was an architect. In 1936 he was expelled from the party "because of his involvement in Bukharin's group". Without waiting for his arrest, he went to Kazakhstan and lived there all his life. From the age of thirteen, Marina stayed with her mother. Two years later, her artistic career began. Quite by accident.
Yakov Protazanov directed the film "Seven-graders". His assistant went to a Moscow school in search of young artists. And watched Marina Kovaleva for the main girl role in this film - Tanya Rusanova. She starred in the film and got into the "Soyuzdetfilm" (now - Gorky film studio). A little later, the director Alexander Razumny shoots with her the film Timur and his team, played there Olga Alexandrova. In the 40th year she was invited by Alexander Rowe to the role of the Tsar-Maiden of Zarya in the film “Humpback Horse”. Ivan was played by Peter Aleynikov. Filming took place in Yalta. Marina had to leave Moscow school and, having moved to the 10th grade, together with her mother to go to Yalta. Work on the film was already completed, but until the end of the school year, the Kovalevs decided not to return to Moscow. And here's the certificate at last. After graduation, they agreed to go to the "Swallow's Nest" class. Marina came home to change her clothes. My mother told me that the war had begun.
In July 1941, a telegram came to Yalta: “Urgently call Kovaleva to participate in a defense film.” Thanks to this, it was possible to get train tickets, and Marina and her mother went home. "Defense film is a continuation of Timur and his team, the scripts for which were written by Arkady Gaidar, Lev Kuleshov and Alexander Khokhlova. It was called “The Oath of Timur.” They shot the picture on the way to Stalinabad, where the film studio was evacuated. Everything was done in a hurry, and the plot is not particularly interesting. In general, the picture was not successful. Marina worked at the studio as an assistant director, assistant cameraman, costume designer and starred in film collections.
In the 43rd year with great difficulty managed to return to Moscow and through the Directorate of front-line theaters to get into the studio of Arbuzov and go with her to the Western front. Marina was busy in the play "The guy from our city" - played Varya. We met them wonderfully everywhere. There were artillerymen, tankmen, infantry units. In July 43, they were near Kursk, near Prokhorovka.
Marina Frantsevna recalls: I went out of the tent at night to breathe fresh air. We were heated with a homemade stove, and in the morning there was nothing to breathe. Nearby was a barn in which lay birch branches collected to mask guns. I lay down right on them. And suddenly I heard a wild hum. It was the Battle of Prokhorov. It's not up to us. The artists were sent to Moscow.
For Marina, it was a real happiness. First of all, she was expecting a baby. And secondly, because the Moscow Art Theatre School opened in Moscow, In the 44th year she enters there and learns from excellent teachers: Blinnikov, Massalsky, Kudryavtsev, Toporkov, Litovtseva. The care of little Alyosha was mainly taken over by her mother. After graduating from the studio school in the 48th year, she was taken to the youth troupe of the Moscow Art Theater - together with Alexander Mikhailov (the one who played Sasha Grigoriev in the first film "Two Captains", Alexei Pokrovsky, Valentina Guzyreva. Kovaleva has been working in the Moscow Art Theater for seven happy years. And then, for family reasons, he leaves.
The first marriage with the actor and director Leonid Agranovich was short-lived. And she, having parted with him, married Ramaz Mchedlidze - the son of People's Artist Vera Davydova and the famous bass, director of the Georgian Opera and Ballet Theater Dmitry Mchedlidze. The husband was engaged in party work, and in the mid-60s he was sent to raise the collective farm "Red Lighthouse" in the Velikoluk region (Pskov). Before leaving for the collective farm, Marina Kovaleeva starred in two films Chiaureli "The Fall of Berlin" with Boris Andreev, for whom she received the Stalin Prize in 1950, and in the film "Unforgettable 1919" also with Boris Andreev.
And here she, having parted with cinema and theater, comes to the village of Tigoszczy. He works as head of the rural library and secretary of the party committee. And the soul goes to the theater. Two years later they returned to Moscow. She was not taken to the Moscow Art Theater, and she goes to Tbilisi - to the Griboyedov Drama Theater. And the husband again has a new purpose - sent to raise virgin land. Children - Olga and Teimuraz - grandparents left at home, saying: "Here settle down, then take." And Marina Frantsevna, having arrived in Tselinograd, plunged headlong into the creative atmosphere. Remembers: There worked at this time a wonderful Cell Drama Regional Theater. I had a rich repertoire and played a lot. And all would be well, but ... the husband gets a promotion - he is appointed secretary of the district party committee. And this area I knew perfectly well, it was not that there was a theater - there was no club. I flatly refuse to go with him. My family life ends there.
And she is back in Moscow, and again without a job. “But I was very lucky,” says Marina Frantsevna. - The rector of the Moscow Art Theatre school-studio Veniamin Radomyslinsky was an absolutely remarkable person. None of his pets left without constant care. You go to him and he says, Don't worry, Marishenka. We'll figure something out. Thanks to him, I worked for some time as a teacher at the department of stage art, then as an assistant at Alla Tarasova. . . Andquot;
And later she was invited to the Gorky Drama Regional Theater in the city of Arzamas-16. She lived there for four years, playing age roles. In 1973, returning to Moscow, he got a job in the Moscow Art Theater, but not as an actress, but as a freed deputy secretary of the Party Committee for Organizational Affairs. The director then became Oleg Efremov. " Oleg and I were familiar for a long time, says Marina Frantsevna. - Since my studies at the Moscow Art School. He got there a year later than me. We have a friendly relationship. But working with him was difficult. I will come to him, and he will say, “Are you with your congregation again?” How long can you do that? " But work is work. I really couldn’t wait to retire. I didn’t really like this business at all.
But in retirement, Marina Frantsevna did not sit idly by. She helped with her grandchildren, wrote a book about her mother, there were magazine articles about virgin land, about the collective farm. But most of all, it is a publication about the war. She shows it to me in the magazine "Friendship of Peoples" and recalls: "I had a friend from the pioneer years - Semen Tumanov." Then he became a film director, directed such famous films as “Bauman”, “Aleshkin’s love”, “To me, Mukhtar”. During the war he went to the front and wrote me letters, kind and lyrical. Mom kept them. And already in the mid-nineties I wrote the story “40 letters from the war”. And Tovstonogov, who also knew Tumanov well, made a preface to this publication. By the way, this idea was given to him by Yegor Yakovlev, then he was the editor of Izvestia. He, learning that I had these letters, gave a whole page in his newspaper: "Letters on Love and War". And then they came to him, and he said, "The people of the world."
Another passion of the whole life of Marina Kovaleva - Chekhov. Not only his work, but also his life. She herself tried to find a solution in the relationship between the writer and Lydia Avilova. This topic so fascinated her that it inspired the story “Long letter”, which was published in one of the issues of “Literary almanac”.
“I would write now,” Marina Frantsevna tells me. There is interesting material, there is something to remember. But, alas, after a stroke, the right hand does not work well. And he goes on: Honestly, we have to move away from active life. After all, when I came here, here and on the stage came out, and edited the wall newspaper. No longer, it has become difficult.
I asked her to tell me about my children. "Alyosha is soon 62 years old. He also graduated from the Moscow Art Theater, worked in the “Lenkom” and the Stanislavsky Theater, his wife is also an actress – Zhanna Vladimirskaya. But their acting profession did not go smoothly, and they went to America. They had me. Live well... Recently, my daughter came to me from Tbilisi. She graduated from the university, but now teaches Russian at a Georgian school. Life there is hungry, hard... Teimuraz is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, he has a good large family - three children. But here, alas, no one needs him, he worked in Japan, in Sweden, now in Germany. Well, I’m happy here, concludes our conversation Marina Frantsevna.
Valentina Semenenko (newspaper "Moscow truth-digest", No3, 2006).
She passed away in June 2007.