5 August 1893 year
Was born Vera Kholodnaya. A silent film star. The "Queen of the Screen" of the early 20th century.
Vera's beauty was the feminine ideal of the early 20th century: a slender profile beneath a shock of black curls, a delicate, girlish neck, and the deep shadows of long eyelashes. Petite, with chiseled shoulders and a "Japanese" foot in a size 33 shoe. And for some reason, her large, deep, gray eyes always looked sadly from the screen. (film critic Neya Zorkaya)
Maiden name - Levchenko. As a child, she almost dropped out of school after passing her exams to the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet school with flying colors. Her grandmother put an end to ballet, returning her to the ranks of schoolgirls.
She loved singing, tennis, and poetry. At 17, at her graduation, she met Vladimir Kholodny. The young lawyer charmed the girl with Gumilyov's poems. They got married.
She became a regular at the Alatr club, a gathering place for Moscow Art Theater actors, artists, and writers. Here, in 1915, she met film studio director Khanzhonkov. Evgeny Bauer. But my first film experience happened a year earlier.
Where are you now? Who kisses your fingers? (Vertinsky - Kholodny)
Russian Pierrot Alexander Vertinsky claimed that he brought Kholodnaya into cinema. In 1914, she was given a cameo role in the film "Anna Karenina", after which the director Gardin decided that nothing would come of Vera.
Unlike Gardin, Bauer He immediately offered Vera the leading role in the film “Song of Triumphant Love” – the role of an “enchanted sleepwalker” seduced by her husband’s friend.
Due to the actress's inexperience, scenes were divided into "moments"—laughter, sadness, tears. The fragmented psychological fragments were interrupted by landscapes or interior details. And—the magic of cinema!—artistic power was born.
Kholodnaya became a star, always playing the role of "the weak-willed victim of passion." She starred in 50 films (eight survive).
Your fingers smell of incense And sadness sleeps in the eyelashes We don't need anything now. I don't feel sorry for anyone now (Vertinsky - Kholodny)
In 1919, Kholodnaya died of the Spanish flu in Odessa. She was 25. The chronicle "The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaya" was a huge box office success.
That same year, 1919, Vera's husband was executed by the Cheka. The actress's grave was destroyed in the 30s.
