Alisa Freindlih, Soviet-Russian actress

Alisa Freindlih is a Soviet and Russian film and theater actress, singer, People’s Artist of the USSR (1981). She is one of the greatest Russian actresses of the XX century. The films where she played are included in the “golden fund” of the national cinema.
The actress is best known for her roles in such films as Straw Hat (1974), Agony (1974), Office Romance (1977), D’Artagnan and Three Musketeers (1978), Stalker (1979), A Cruel Romance (1984) and Fifteen Rooms, or a Sentimental Journey to the Motherland (2009). She is a winner of numerous awards.
You know, Alisa became a film star after the movie Office Romance. Film remake Office Romance Our time was released in 2011, where the role of Ludmila Kalugina was played by young actress Svetlana Hodchenkova.
Cute girl was born on December 8, 1934 in Leningrad (now St Petersburg). The mother of the future actress Ksenia Fedorova lived in Pskov. Later she moved to Leningrad, where she met German-born actor Bruno Freindlih. Shortly before the war Alisa’s parents broke up. Her father went on tour and the girl stayed with her mother.

To tell the truth, not only her father, but also all his relatives had to leave Leningrad. The Great Patriotic War began and then there was the Siege of Leningrad. So Alisa was a child of war and blockade. During the war the girl’s mother worked as an accountant. Later she and her daughter moved to Tallinn where they spent three years.
In 1953 Alisa graduated from school and even then the girl knew she would be an actress.
Later, in 1955, she played small roles in the films Unfinished Story and Talents And Admirers. At the same time, she married her classmate Vladimir Karasev. Their marriage didn’t last long, after graduation from the Institute the couple divorced.
In the late 1950s, she met theater director Igor Vladimirov, he was sixteen years older than her and some years later Alisa became his third wife. That period was the peak of her career. She was the first lady of the theater. However, in 1981 they divorced.

In 1968 Alisa gave birth to her daughter Barbara. The girl graduated from the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography, appeared in several feature films and performed on the stage. Now she is a mother of two children: son Nikita and daughter Anna. Nikita studies at the Moscow Art Theater School.
Young actor Yuri Solovei became Alisa’s third husband. But in 1990 they divorced.
The actress worked in the Lensovet Theatre from 1961 but had to leave it following her divorce with the theatre’s director in 1982. Thereupon Georgy Tovstonogov invited her to join his company, Bolshoi Drama Theater.
Great actress starred in several notable movies, including Eldar Ryazanov’s enormously popular comedy Office Romance (1977), the long-banned epic Agony (1975) and Tarkovsky’s sci-fi movie Stalker (1979). Another notable role was the Queen Anne of Austria in the Soviet TV series D’Artagnan and Three Musketeers (1978) and its later Russian sequels Musketeers 20 Years Later (1992) and The Secret of Queen Anna or Musketeers 30 Years Later (1993).
On her 70th birthday, Freindlih’s flat was visited by Vladimir Putin, who presented her with one of the top decorations of the Russian Federation. She was honored with a Nika Award for Best Actress in 2005.
In 2008, the actress received two main roles in the films Vasilievsky Island and Marevo.
Then, in 2014, she played one of the main roles in the melodrama Martha’s Line. In the same year, the actress became the guest of the TV program Evening Urgant.
Her official site: www.alisa-freindlih.ru

Alisa Freindlih, Soviet-Russian actress