... When Gurchenko was asked how she became an actress, a long silence followed. This question was always incomprehensible to her, and she, venerable, fire and water passed, often found nothing to answer the girls, regularly throwing her bags of letters with the same ridiculous refrain “how to become...”
Gurchenko has always been an actress, not one. You can’t learn this for any money or geniuses. It is like being chronically ill: you cannot be cured, and you do not know another condition. Getting into a TV camera, on a screen does not mean becoming an actress: well, they will shoot you once or twice, and the next day they will not invite you, and the audience will soon forget. It's a craft. You need talent for a job. From God. Everything else is a problem of realizing the existing potential.
Gurchenko originally had it. Already far, far away, then little Lucia memorized the melodies of songs, instantly grasped intricate tap taps, standing on a stool, recited poems ... Extraordinary musicality and all-conquering artistry she inherited from her father - Mark Gavrilovich, a man of the highest soul, from the very thick of the national, Russian nugget.
Looking around today zigzag, then sagging in the ditches of time, then dazzling turns sharply ascending into the inaccessible heights of the star path of the actress, I catch myself thinking that he, this path, in his compressed shortened distance was already traversed by Lyudmila Markovna in that unforgettable tenderly harsh time. There are people who don’t choose roads, they choose roads. Gurchenko is the case. She could only be what she was. She played her first film role at the age of 18. These were three small episodes in the film “The Way of Truth”, where the main character was played by Tamara Makarova, her Vgikov mentor. Gurchenko appeared in the picture in the form of a determined, militant girl-agitator, and her first phrase was: “I came here for the wrong reason to be silent.” This later turned out to be true. Fate led the actress by the hand.
I did, though, sometimes. Now it is difficult, simply impossible to believe that Gurchenko could not play in Ryazanovsk “Carnival Night”. The fact is that after the first screen test, she was not approved for the role, and the actress, covered with the fever of the impending spring session, soon forgot about it.
But God is all-seeing. New tests were appointed, the operator was changed. The film is musical, requiring an understanding of the specifics of the genre. Gurchenko reluctantly, but decided to return. Her musical and dramatic talent was recognized slowly, not without cynical chuckles, and even sarcasm. However, time puts everything in its place - "Carnival Night" has long been a classic of comedy musical cinema.
The film took the actress to a dizzying height. On the wave of triumph, Gurchenko starred in the new musical film “Girl with guitar”. It would seem that new success is inevitable, but there was no sensation. The film did not work, and in the minds of the directors, Gurchenko secured the pernicious reputation of the actress of one role - a luscious operetta coquette. She could not yet prove that she was different, that she was not only "five minutes" and "tru-la-la." There was nothing dramatic about it. Or rather, they didn't want to see it.
This lasted for about two years, until “Lenfilm” – the actress’s always-go-ahead – invited her to try out a serious non-musical role for the first time in the fall of 1959. It was a painting of the Baltic Sky. Three more films followed one after another at different studios. Again, the tide, the silence. Rehearsed something in the theater of the actor, went even to “Contemporary”, the main thing is to work, not to lose shape. She starred in a couple of inexpressive film roles. From proposals, even sometimes bad, accidental, never refused: I understood that simple for the actress – death. At the same time, she did not miss the opportunity to work in concerts, wrote songs, even performed with Mark Burnes. And yet it wasn't enough. Years of creative lack of demand were extremely painful for the actress, but did not break her. She accumulated experience - life, professional, human.
The wait, accompanied by painstaking inner work, was soon, however, generously rewarded. Bright, original roles in the films “Open Book” by Vladimir Fetin, “Children of Vanyushin” by Evgeny Tashkov and especially “Old Walls” by Tregubovich suddenly exposed another nerve of Gurchenko’s talent – psychological, she began to be perceived as an actress characteristic, universal, removed ridiculous labels. A new, truly winged period of creativity began: “Twenty Days Without War” by Herman, “Five Evenings” by Mikhalkov, later “Favorite Woman of the Mechanic Gavrilov” by Todorovsky and, of course, the trembling “Station for Two” by Ryazanov... Continuously filming, Gurchenko also sings, participating in national pop shows and television programs. Many remember the magnificent “Benefis” of the mid-70s and the inimitable, deeply personal interpretation of songs of the military and post-war years, family so close to it.
And yet Gurchenko dreamed of a movie musical. The case soon presented itself, and she starred in the film “The Recipe of Her Youth” based on Chapek’s play “The Makropoulos Remedy”. Unfortunately, he did not become a milestone in the work of the actress - a fantastic plot, a good, but in principle monotonous melodic canvas, chic Gurchenkov facial expressions, and everything is somehow inharmonious, unnatural, and eventually faded.
The same thing happened with the almost biographical film Applause, Applause ..., the primitive plot of which, together with banal songs, did not allow her powerful dramatic talent to unfold. All this is the typical cost of musical cinema, which, it seems, has not been learned how to make in Russia. In this respect, Gurchenko’s rare musicality and Bengali eccentricity have never taken on a proper form. To surpass the period of “Carnival night” she as a musical actress and could not.
And here it would be a sin not to say about the creative achievements of the actress associated, alas, not with the cinema, but, fortunately, with the theater. After a long-standing quarrel with the “Contemporary” Gurchenko again became friends with Melpomena. Shimmering diamonds of her unique Gift she sparkles in two performances at once - "Honour" at the Anton Chekhov Theatre and "The Battlefield after Victory Belongs to the Marauders" in Satira. These performances became a real event of theatrical life.
But in the last years of Lyudmila Markovna’s life, it became sad to look at her. In the play with the pretentious title “PAB”, she played some incomprehensible vulgar person, a faded shadow is not that of Marilyn Monroe, or that of Lyubov Orlova, and there was no real role! So, unfunny jokes on the rash of the day, pretentious gestures and tricks, and typical Gurchenko acting cliches (“Well, how are you here, nothing?”), and there is no craving, driving some tortured, artificial. The actress exploited what she had so successfully earned in Carnival Night, Gavrilov’s Favorite Woman, Station for Two or the sensational (and beautiful!) movie hit Love and Pigeons. Did the actress not understand that by participating in dubious projects, she leveled the good, good, beautiful that she had already created?
What a great start it once was! "Five minutes, five minutes ..."
... When Gurchenko was asked how she became an actress, a long silence followed. This question was always incomprehensible to her, and she, venerable, fire and water passed, often found nothing to answer the girls, regularly throwing her bags of letters with the same ridiculous refrain “how to become...”
Gurchenko has always been an actress, not one. You can’t learn this for any money or geniuses. It is like being chronically ill: you cannot be cured, and you do not know another condition. Getting into a TV camera, on a screen does not mean becoming an actress: well, they will shoot you once or twice, and the next day they will not invite you, and the audience will soon forget. It's a craft. You need talent for a job. From God. Everything else is a problem of realizing the existing potential.
Gurchenko originally had it. Already far, far away, then little Lucia memorized the melodies of songs, instantly grasped intricate tap taps, standing on a stool, recited poems ... Extraordinary musicality and all-conquering artistry she inherited from her father - Mark Gavrilovich, a man of the highest soul, from the very thick of the national, Russian nugget.
Looking around today zigzag, then sagging in the ditches of time, then dazzling turns sharply ascending into the inaccessible heights of the star path of the actress, I catch myself thinking that he, this path, in his compressed shortened distance was already traversed by Lyudmila Markovna in that unforgettable tenderly harsh time. There are people who don’t choose roads, they choose roads. Gurchenko is the case. She could only be what she was. She played her first film role at the age of 18. These were three small episodes in the film “The Way of Truth”, where the main character was played by Tamara Makarova, her Vgikov mentor. Gurchenko appeared in the picture in the form of a determined, militant girl-agitator, and her first phrase was: “I came here for the wrong reason to be silent.” This later turned out to be true. Fate led the actress by the hand.
I did, though, sometimes. Now it is difficult, simply impossible to believe that Gurchenko could not play in Ryazanovsk “Carnival Night”. The fact is that after the first screen test, she was not approved for the role, and the actress, covered with the fever of the impending spring session, soon forgot about it.
But God is all-seeing. New tests were appointed, the operator was changed. The film is musical, requiring an understanding of the specifics of the genre. Gurchenko reluctantly, but decided to return. Her musical and dramatic talent was recognized slowly, not without cynical chuckles, and even sarcasm. However, time puts everything in its place - "Carnival Night" has long been a classic of comedy musical cinema.
The film took the actress to a dizzying height. On the wave of triumph, Gurchenko starred in the new musical film “Girl with guitar”. It would seem that new success is inevitable, but there was no sensation. The film did not work, and in the minds of the directors, Gurchenko secured the pernicious reputation of the actress of one role - a luscious operetta coquette. She could not yet prove that she was different, that she was not only "five minutes" and "tru-la-la." There was nothing dramatic about it. Or rather, they didn't want to see it.
This lasted for about two years, until “Lenfilm” – the actress’s always-go-ahead – invited her to try out a serious non-musical role for the first time in the fall of 1959. It was a painting of the Baltic Sky. Three more films followed one after another at different studios. Again, the tide, the silence. Rehearsed something in the theater of the actor, went even to “Contemporary”, the main thing is to work, not to lose shape. She starred in a couple of inexpressive film roles. From proposals, even sometimes bad, accidental, never refused: I understood that simple for the actress – death. At the same time, she did not miss the opportunity to work in concerts, wrote songs, even performed with Mark Burnes. And yet it wasn't enough. Years of creative lack of demand were extremely painful for the actress, but did not break her. She accumulated experience - life, professional, human.
The wait, accompanied by painstaking inner work, was soon, however, generously rewarded. Bright, original roles in the films “Open Book” by Vladimir Fetin, “Children of Vanyushin” by Evgeny Tashkov and especially “Old Walls” by Tregubovich suddenly exposed another nerve of Gurchenko’s talent – psychological, she began to be perceived as an actress characteristic, universal, removed ridiculous labels. A new, truly winged period of creativity began: “Twenty Days Without War” by Herman, “Five Evenings” by Mikhalkov, later “Favorite Woman of the Mechanic Gavrilov” by Todorovsky and, of course, the trembling “Station for Two” by Ryazanov... Continuously filming, Gurchenko also sings, participating in national pop shows and television programs. Many remember the magnificent “Benefis” of the mid-70s and the inimitable, deeply personal interpretation of songs of the military and post-war years, family so close to it.
And yet Gurchenko dreamed of a movie musical. The case soon presented itself, and she starred in the film “The Recipe of Her Youth” based on Chapek’s play “The Makropoulos Remedy”. Unfortunately, he did not become a milestone in the work of the actress - a fantastic plot, a good, but in principle monotonous melodic canvas, chic Gurchenkov facial expressions, and everything is somehow inharmonious, unnatural, and eventually faded.
The same thing happened with the almost biographical film Applause, Applause ..., the primitive plot of which, together with banal songs, did not allow her powerful dramatic talent to unfold. All this is the typical cost of musical cinema, which, it seems, has not been learned how to make in Russia. In this respect, Gurchenko’s rare musicality and Bengali eccentricity have never taken on a proper form. To surpass the period of “Carnival night” she as a musical actress and could not.
And here it would be a sin not to say about the creative achievements of the actress associated, alas, not with the cinema, but, fortunately, with the theater. After a long-standing quarrel with the “Contemporary” Gurchenko again became friends with Melpomena. Shimmering diamonds of her unique Gift she sparkles in two performances at once - "Honour" at the Anton Chekhov Theatre and "The Battlefield after Victory Belongs to the Marauders" in Satira. These performances became a real event of theatrical life.
But in the last years of Lyudmila Markovna’s life, it became sad to look at her. In the play with the pretentious title “PAB”, she played some incomprehensible vulgar person, a faded shadow is not that of Marilyn Monroe, or that of Lyubov Orlova, and there was no real role! So, unfunny jokes on the rash of the day, pretentious gestures and tricks, and typical Gurchenko acting cliches (“Well, how are you here, nothing?”), and there is no craving, driving some tortured, artificial. The actress exploited what she had so successfully earned in Carnival Night, Gavrilov’s Favorite Woman, Station for Two or the sensational (and beautiful!) movie hit Love and Pigeons. Did the actress not understand that by participating in dubious projects, she leveled the good, good, beautiful that she had already created?
What a great start it once was! "Five minutes, five minutes ..."
... When Gurchenko was asked how she became an actress, a long silence followed. This question was always incomprehensible to her, and she, venerable, fire and water passed, often found nothing to answer the girls, regularly throwing her bags of letters with the same ridiculous refrain “how to become...”
Gurchenko has always been an actress, not one. You can’t learn this for any money or geniuses. It is like being chronically ill: you cannot be cured, and you do not know another condition. Getting into a TV camera, on a screen, does not mean becoming an actress: well, they will shoot you once or twice, and the next day they will not invite you, and the audience will soon forget. It's a craft. You need talent for a job. From God. Everything else is a problem of realizing the existing potential.
Gurchenko originally had it. Already far, far away, then little Lucia memorized the melodies of songs, instantly grasped intricate tap taps, standing on a stool, recited poems ... Extraordinary musicality and all-conquering artistry she inherited from her father - Mark Gavrilovich, a man of the highest soul, from the very thick of the people's, Russian nugget.
Looking around today zigzag, then sagging in the ditches of time, then dazzling turns sharply ascending into the inaccessible heights of the star path of the actress, I catch myself thinking that he, this path, in his compressed shortened distance was already traversed by Lyudmila Markovna in that unforgettable tenderly harsh time. There are people who don’t choose roads, they choose roads. Gurchenko is the case. She could only be what she was. She played her first film role at the age of 18. These were three small episodes in the film “The Way of Truth”, where the main character was played by Tamara Makarova, her Vgikov mentor. Gurchenko appeared in the picture in the form of a determined, militant girl-agitator, and her first phrase was: “I came here for the wrong reason to be silent.” This later turned out to be true. Fate led the actress by the hand.
I did, though, sometimes. Now it is difficult, simply impossible to believe that Gurchenko could not play in Ryazanovsk “Carnival Night”. The fact is that after the first screen test, she was not approved for the role, and the actress, gripped by the fever of the impending spring session, soon forgot about it.
But God is all-seeing. New tests were appointed, the operator was changed. The film is musical, requiring an understanding of the specifics of the genre. Gurchenko reluctantly, but decided to return. Her musical and dramatic talent was recognized slowly, not without cynical chuckles, and even sarcasm. However, time puts everything in its place - "Carnival Night" has long been a classic of comedy musical cinema.
The film took the actress to a dizzying height. On the wave of triumph, Gurchenko starred in the new musical film “Girl with guitar”. It would seem that new success is inevitable, but there was no sensation. The film did not work, and in the minds of the directors, Gurchenko secured the pernicious reputation of the actress of one role - a luscious operetta coquette. She could not yet prove that she was different, that she was not only "five minutes" and "tru-la-la." There was nothing dramatic about it. Or rather, they didn't want to see it.
This went on for about two years, until “Lenfilm” – the actress’s always-go-ahead – invited her to try out a serious non-musical role for the first time in the fall of 1959. It was a painting of the Baltic Sky. Three more films followed one after another at different studios. Again, the tide, the silence. Rehearsed something in the theater of the actor, went even to “Contemporary”, the main thing is to work, do not lose shape. She starred in a couple of inexpressive film roles. From proposals, even sometimes bad, accidental, never refused: I understood that simple for the actress – death. At the same time, she did not miss the opportunity to work in concerts, wrote songs, even performed with Mark Burnes. And yet it wasn't enough. Years of creative lack of demand were extremely painful for the actress, but did not break her. She accumulated experience - life, professional, human.
The wait, accompanied by painstaking inner work, was soon, however, generously rewarded. Bright, original roles in the films “Open Book” by Vladimir Fetin, “Children of Vanyushin” by Evgeny Tashkov and especially “Old Walls” by Tregubovich suddenly exposed another nerve of Gurchenko’s talent – psychological, she began to be perceived as an actress characteristic, universal, removed ridiculous labels. A new, truly winged period of creativity began: “Twenty Days Without War” by Herman, “Five Evenings” by Mikhalkov, later “Favorite Woman of the Mechanic Gavrilov” by Todorovsky and, of course, the trembling “Station for Two” by Ryazanov... Continuously filming, Gurchenko also sings, participating in national pop shows and television programs. Many remember the magnificent “Benefis” of the mid-70s and the inimitable, deeply personal interpretation of songs of the military and post-war years, family so close to it.
And yet Gurchenko dreamed of a movie musical. The case soon presented itself, and she starred in the film “The Recipe of Her Youth” based on Chapek’s play “The Makropoulos Remedy”. Unfortunately, he did not become a milestone in the work of the actress – a fantastic plot, a good, but in principle monotonous melodic canvas, chic Gurchenkov facial expressions, and everything is somehow inharmonious, unnatural, and in the end faded.
The same thing happened with the almost biographical film Applause, Applause ..., the primitive plot of which, together with banal songs, did not allow her powerful dramatic talent to unfold. All this is the typical cost of musical cinema, which, it seems, has not been learned how to make in Russia. In this respect, Gurchenko’s rare musicality and Bengali eccentricity have never taken on a proper form. To surpass the period of “Carnival night” she as a musical actress and could not.
And here it would be a sin not to say about the creative achievements of the actress associated, alas, not with the cinema, but, fortunately, with the theater. After a long-standing quarrel with the “Contemporary” Gurchenko again became friends with Melpomena. Shimmering diamonds of her unique Gift she sparkles in two performances at once – “Honour” at the Anton Chekhov Theatre and “The Battlefield after Victory Belongs to the Marauders” in Satira. These performances became a real event of theatrical life.
But in the last years of Lyudmila Markovna’s life, it became sad to look at her. In the play with the pretentious title “PAB”, she played some incomprehensible vulgar person, a faded shadow is not that of Marilyn Monroe, or that of Lyubov Orlova, and there was no real role! So, unfunny jokes on the rash of the day, pretentious gestures and tricks, and typical Gurchenko acting cliches (“Well, how are you here, nothing?”), and there is no craving, driving some tortured, artificial. The actress exploited what she had so successfully earned in Carnival Night, Gavrilov’s Favorite Woman, Station for Two or the sensational (and beautiful!) movie hit Love and Pigeons. Did the actress not understand that by participating in dubious projects, she leveled the good, good, beautiful that she had already created?
What a great start it once was! "Five minutes, five minutes ..."