The Circus - an American actress who hide her black child |
Meeting on the Elbe - an American intelligence service's officer |
Engineer Kochin's Error - a betrayer of the Motherland |
The Artamonovs' Business - an Italian striptease dancer |
Starling and Lire - a Soviet intelligence service's officer |
Russian Souvenir - one Russian woman among foreigners |
One more version
Lyubov Orlova was probably the most glamorous and popular actress of Soviet cinema. In possession of bright eyes and shining teeth, high cheekbones and immaculate skin, she was good looking and emanated exuberant health. She was a proficient dancer and singer, her smile was irresistible and her charisma unsurpassed. Her name, Lyubov, meant 'Love,' and she remained an object of great admiration throughout her lifetime and beyond.
How did she manage to become a feminine symbol of the whole epoch? What was the secret of her increadible sussess?
People stil try to reveal the secret of her fantastic charm:
1. Ideal woman - She had to stay the same for years, she couldn't getting old, she couldn't be not good-looking, not dressing up, not smiling. People should watch only the Ideal Woman.
2. She had a love for life, she was very enthusiastic about life and work - She became famous because her husband Alexandrov borrowed artificial optimisme and love for liffrom Hollywood movies. He successfully chose a genre of musicals, in which she was glinting.
3. She was a peroxide blonde - Her golden hair turned her into the divinity. Alexandrov made her similar to the Sun.
4. She was in love with her husband, a famous Russian filmdirector - The meeting with this man lit up her life like a flash. She never dreamed to work at the cinematograph, but when she met him, she decided to dedicate her life to the cinema. She beleived in Alexandrov, and this was the source of their success.
5. Coquetry - Tyrants like coquettish women. All Soviet high functioners adored slim ballerinas. This is a play in a weakness! People were ecstatic about her jumping up eyebrows and naive widely open eyes.
6. Male features (the absence of children, smoking)
7. Strong will - Fortune is always on her side, but weak people never can become stars. Many fragile beauties can teach other people how to reach goals.
8. Sincerity - She never was shy when it was necessary to help people.
9. Mask - She always hided her noble origin and her age.
Feminine Symbols
Newspaper “New Izvestiya” and National e-Mail Service Mail.ru conduct surveys on different topics regularly. The September, 2005, first week’s question was “Which actress can be called a Symbol of a Russian national cinema?”. 8072 persons have taken part in the poll and most of them are young enough. As a result, Lyubov Orlova has taken the honorary second place among plenty of famous Russian and Soviet actresses. Although she died more than thirty years ago, she is still well-known and influential. (in Russian).
Top Russian beauties eclipse Monroe
The Times (UK)
October 27 1999
FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW
THE most beautiful woman this century, according to several hundred thousand Russians, is an actress who had passed her prime before Brezhnev came to power and is barely known outside the former Soviet Union. Elina
Bystritskaya, well-preserved at 71, was the first choice of readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda when asked to name the 100 most beautiful women of the
century.
A classical actress who trod Moscow's boards in Soviet-approved plays during the age of Stalin, Ms Bystritskaya graced the front of a four-page pull-out section of the newspaper yesterday, leaving Audrey Hepburn, Raisa Gorbachev and Naomi Campbell trailing in her wake. The list's top ten includes Anastasia Vertinskaya, Alla Larionova and Lubov Orlova, all of them famous from Minsk to Khabarovsk. Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot came seventh and ninth respectively. Elizabeth Taylor was the highest-ranking Briton at No 25, followed by Samantha Fox, the former Page 3 girl, at No 53. Hepburn came 56th, Campbell 57th and Joan Collins was 79th.
Russia's readers showed catholic taste compared with their American counterparts, who routinely ignore the rest of the world in similar surveys.
Hollywood actresses were everywhere, including Kim Basinger at No 11, Pamela Anderson at No 15 and Jodie Foster at No 30.
Germany was represented by Claudia Schiffer (No 34) and France by Catherine Deneuve (No 31), as well as Bardot.
"The most important thing for Russians when assessing beauty is to have classical, regular lines - big eyes, a straight nose, everything in proportion," Irina Mikhailovskaya, a beauty editor at Russian Vogue, said
yesterday. "Our notion of beauty is subconsciously formed by the old Russian icons."
If so, there are some heretics among Komsomolskaya Pravda's readers. At No 46 on their list of the century's most beautiful women was a doyen of the Moscow disco scene - Boris Moiseyev, a man.
Pin-ups of the Slavs
This century's ten most beautiful women, according to the Russian poll are:
1 Elina Bystritskaya
2 Irina Alferova
3 Anastasia Vertinskaya
4 Alla Larionova
5 Lubov Orlova
6 Ludmilla Khityaeva
7 Marilyn Monroe
8 Natalia Varley
9 Brigitte Bardot
10 Michel Merce
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