May 9, 1940
She was born in Kharkov Inna Gulaya — actress. The main character, Natasha, from "When the Trees Were Tall."
Inna's grandfather, People's Commissar of Labor of the Ukrainian SSR Konstantin Guly, She was repressed during the Great Terror. Her father abandoned her mother while she was pregnant, refusing to marry the daughter of an "enemy of the people."
My stepfather was a military engineer. Joseph Genfer: He proposed marriage on the first day they met and talked them out of having an abortion. After his death, her mother raised her daughter alone and worked part-time as a seamstress.
Inna dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood. Having failed to enroll in drama school, she studied at the Central Children's Theater studio and worked as a machine operator.
In 1960, at 20, she made her debut in the anti-religious film Clouds Over Borsk. She starred here alongside Nikita Mikhalkov и Inna Churikova — a tenth-grader, whom the sectarians drive half-mad and try to crucify on a cross.
A year later, in 1961, she landed her most famous role – that of the village girl Natasha in the film When the Trees Were Tall. She starred in it with Yuri Nikulin: According to the plot, her heroine trustingly mistook him for her father, who went missing in action during the war.
Rehearsing with her was incredibly interesting. She had a way of captivating you, making you forget everything else. (Yuri Nikulin)
In 1962 she played the role of a friend Yaroslav Hasek In the Czechoslovak-Soviet film "The Big Road." She graduated from the Shchukin Theatre School at 24, when she had already achieved fame on the big screen.
She worked at the Moscow Youth Theatre, then at the Film Actors' Theatre-Studio and acted in films (now Nikita Mikhalkov's workshop "12").
She was married to a screenwriter and poet Gennady Shpalikov ("I Walk Through Moscow"). In 1966, she played her last leading role in his autobiographical film "A Long Happy Life." The film was barely noticed in the USSR, as it came at the end of the "thaw." After that, the couple rarely received any film offers.
According to one version, Shpalikov was reminded of the script for the iconic 1964 film about the sixties and the debates about Stalinism, “Ilyicha Outpost” (also known as “I’m 20 Years Old”): it was criticized by Goskino and personally Khrushchev.
In 1972, due to work and personal problems, the couple divorced. Two years later, Shpalikov hanged himself at 37. Some relatives and friends blamed Inna for the breakup, claiming she had initiated the divorce and triggered her ex-husband's depression and alcohol addiction.
It's not cowardice at all—I can't live with you. Don't be sad. I'm tired of you. Dasha, remember. Shpalikov (suicide note, Dasha - daughter of Gennady and Inna)
The last time she appeared on screen was three years before her death, in an episode of the film The Kreutzer Sonata.
She died on May 28, 1990, at the age of 50. The circumstances of her death remain unknown. Forensic experts concluded that the cause of death was an overdose of sleeping pills.
There was a "black hole" about her that you couldn't tell at first glance. There was something deceptive about her attractive appearance and her bottomless, expressive eyes. She was merciless with herself at work, unafraid of being unattractive, wrinkling her nose and dragging her feet. (film writer Natalia Fokina)
