Natalya gundareva last interview. We didn't get to see her.

To the anniversary of Natalia Gundareva ( Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 08/27/1998)

Dubrovsky V.Ya.
Natalia Gundareva. Actress. - M.: CJSC Publishing House Tsentrpoligraf, 2000. - 413 p.

"DO NOT JUBILEE!"

The birthday of Natalia Gundareva, ironically, falls on the most non-theatrical month - August. This is the time of holidays or, as they say, the off season. All theatrical people go to rest, and some, on the contrary, use this month for filming, concerts, private tours, and trips abroad. Celebrating a birthday in August, and even more so an anniversary, is pointless and impossible. In this case, the celebration is postponed to another, more convenient time.

Gundareva did not begin to change or move anything; she simply did not celebrate her anniversary, despite the fact that the date was the most round and most solemn.

Of course, the anniversary of the most popular and beloved actress did not go unnoticed. Articles about the hero of the day appeared in many newspapers; television organized the screening of the best films with the participation of Gundareva, the theater at the beginning of the season held a decade of performances of its leading actress, released a special anniversary poster; Colleagues and partners in a close circle backstage congratulated Natasha and raised their glasses to her. But at the request of Natalia Georgievna, there was no national holiday with a final many-hour anniversary evening, at which speeches are necessarily made, theatrical greetings are played, a skit is played, and they all go to the buffet table.

Gundareva's reluctance to be the object of anniversary celebrations is explained, firstly, by her dislike for various party events and the fear of being involved in something similar.

And secondly, Natasha, demanding of herself, smart and ironic, knew the value of anniversary doxology, seeing in them, as Mayakovsky wrote, "speech and incense." Following the poet, Gundareva is ready to say: “Do not celebrate!” She said it very clearly: “I would not like to think of this day as the result of some segment of my life, because I want to be in motion. I can't accept that this is the end result. I want it to be too early for me to sum up.”

Understanding and accepting Natasha's similar desire, one cannot but assume that on that day she nevertheless recalled the past, thought about the years she had lived, involuntarily analyzed what she had played. Only Natasha herself knows what occupied her mind and filled her heart that day. But we have the opportunity to assume and simulate the movement of her thoughts on this day. If we assume that, without summing up, without perceiving this day as a milestone, she recalled herself in different years past years, we can remember it with her. For there is documentary evidence that tells about Natasha Gundareva in these different years of her life. Her interviews are such evidence. In each of them, the content is very important, then, what says Natasha, but no less how she says, that is, the mood, the atmosphere, the emotional state. These interviews are like cardiograms, they record the movement of thought and the mood of the soul. And just like cardiograms, they convey the dynamics of her spiritual growth. Let's try to leaf through Gundareva's interviews and select the most informative and interesting ones from their set.

The first interview was published in Literaturnaya Gazeta in the New Year's issue of 1978. By this time, Gundareva not only made a successful debut, but managed to gain some fame. In the theater, she already had such successes as Varka in The Thought of a Briton, and especially Lipochka in Bankrupt. Ten roles were played on television, among them such memorable works as Marfenka (“Cliff”), Mirandolina (“Innkeeper”), Dunka (“Spring Love”). The most benevolent response was caused by film roles - Dusya in "Autumn" and Anna Dobrokhotova, who brought resounding success (" Sweet woman"). There were all signs of nascent popularity. Under these conditions, it was easy to feel confident and victorious. The first interview tells a different story - the young actress pays high tribute to the directors who worked with her, and calls herself clay in their hands.

“The conversation about Bankrupt arose by itself when I asked to talk about the debut. “Lipochka,” Gundareva answered, naming the role played after three years in the theater troupe: this is how it happens ...

Formally, there were other debuts, - says the actress, - for example, I was immediately introduced to three performances, then they gave me a role in a modern play. Bad role. As Lear says to Cordelia, "Nothing will come of nothing." Everything that was possible, I did, but - such an overstrain! I lost my voice every performance. Everything in me resisted. There is nothing worse than a bad role. I can not...

Bankrupt is another matter. I love this performance, and I love the role, and I am happy when I play. Everyone likes her: I love Ostrovsky, I am pleased to pronounce words in which there is culture, there is respect for the language, meaning.

They say that when the dramaturgy is good, it's hard to work on it. This is true. But for all that, I personally feel inner lightness. I doubt, I bite my nails, I'm afraid, but I feel - how do you say? - as in the saddle. And I am happy at these performances, because I love to work. And for the sake of such worth working. For the sake of bad plays, it’s not worth it, it’s better to do something else - dig in the garden, grow flowers ...

How important is a director to you?

For me, the director is everything. And by that I really mean everything. In general, I often think that I am clay. Maybe I’m “burning” on that, because many actors believe that ... well, let's say this: you have to carry yourself. And I think: the higher the quality of the clay, the more likely it is that the master will get a better result.

And if what the director offers is not to your liking? You cannot play, you are not interested, otherwise you see your role ...

Well, people meet to talk. You can always agree... And yet, you see, I noticed: we often suffer from the fact that we insist, being wrong. But you must try to understand the other and explain what you want yourself. And you should also try to understand me ... Are there such options when you categorically do not want to do something? There are. Then there is conflict. And if the views do not converge at all, then it is better not to act at all, because work without contact is a disastrous business. Then you have to leave.

Yes, I am clay, clay! Gundareva laughed. - Only I, maybe not this director's clay - I'm from another quarry or not his material at all: he may like to work on wood or cut diamonds, and I'm clay, clay ... "

Exactly two years after the first interview in the New Year's issue of Soviet Culture in 1980, Gundareva briefly and modestly reported on her last two roles, although they gave rise to high-profile victorious reports.

“As for everyone, the past year was probably filled with various events for me - joyful and sad. But there were more joyful ones (I hope that the readers, too). That is why I am glad that the year has passed, and at the same time I am sad to part with it. And I dream. Here comes New Year... Maybe he will not bring me anything special, but you always place your brightest hopes on him. With the same year that has passed, I also want to part in a kind way and remember only the best, happiest about it. For example, two new roles: in the film by G. Daneliya based on the script by A. Volodin "Autumn Marathon" and in the play based on the story by N. Leskov "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" on the stage of the Theater named after Vl. Mayakovsky.

Both of these works are about human drama. And although the "Autumn Marathon" was filmed in the comedy genre familiar to Danelia, the story about which the film tells is rather sad. That is why I believe in the audience's empathy for the fate of my heroines.

It was nice to see such an understanding abroad: we showed our new performance this year in Yugoslavia, and the film “Autumn Marathon” received the “Grand Prix” in San Sebastian, and we went with it to the American audience. And two more interesting trips took place this year - to Hungary and France, where we filmed a new Mosfilm film "White Snow of Russia", dedicated to the life of the great Russian chess player Alekhine.

Fairy tales must come true. Certainly. Many years ago, when I was very young, I went to the theater for the first time. They showed the Blue Bird. I don’t remember the performance itself, but I remember this magic well: the lights go out quietly and the curtain silently moves apart ...

That holiday remained in my memory forever, and I wish everyone who comes to the auditorium to find their Blue Bird there every time ... "

Six months later, in the same newspaper Sovietskaya Kultura, Gundareva spoke about these and other new roles in detail, deeply analyzing the dramatic basis, the work of the director, and her own efforts. The actress speaks frankly about her doubts, shares her thoughts about the direction and nature of future work in theater and cinema.

“The now impressive list of screen works by the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Natalia Gundareva once began in a tiny episodic role in the film “Moscow, Passing Through.” And years passed, as critics wrote, “the day of great success has come” - the film “Sweet Woman” with Natalia Gundareva as Anna Dobrokhotova was released on the screens.

It was a very important, one might say, milestone film for me, - says Gundareva. - Success - a phenomenon in general strikingly serious in the fate of the actor. Not only because, as they say, he "inspires". What is acting? They say: "Creative work." So I'm an actress? But I don’t work - every day I go on stage to conquer the audience so that, initially alienated from the stage or screen, they forget where they find themselves, die with me and resurrect. I want it to be so, and I rarely know if I succeeded? So, real success, and not fostered by capricious fashion, is a criterion, if you like, an actor's moment of truth, and henceforth to play below it, I just have no right to "work out" the role. They call me a maximalist. Say, to live with such a program is difficult - constantly on the limit. Why should it be easy?

In your opinion, why did Georgy Danelia invite you to the role of Nina in his Autumn Marathon?

Exactly the same question was asked by Georgy Nikolayevich and I, although, I confess, after reading the excellent script by Alexander Volodin, I did not doubt for a single minute - my role! At the same time, I clearly understood that I would get wet until I lost my pulse - the image of Nina required different colors than many of my past roles. Danelia, I remember, replied that, in his opinion, it was clear without any words why I should play Nina. And I was quite, you know, satisfied with such a "concrete" answer.

I suffered to my heart's content, and they suffered with me, they filmed a lot. All the time I was drawn to play in the usual manner - on a stormy emotion, with a broad gesture - well, like, say, in the film “Citizen Nikanorova is waiting for you” or in “The Innkeeper”. But it was necessary to be restrained, with hidden pain, which can be “louder” than stormy sobs ... Here, by the way, is an example of a rather painful breaking of one’s own manner.

Nina taught me a lot, I fell in love with her, as you love everything that is born with great difficulty. I penetrated into her state when she sits on long dreary evenings alone at the TV, with fear frozen in her eyes: what if today her husband Buzykin, kind and sowing only suffering around, announces that he is finally leaving completely for another. And once, when the scene had already been filmed, and I still could not stop crying about the fate of my unfortunate Nina, Danelia said: “Because of these tears, it was you who had to play Nina.” That's where the hearing and vision of a real artist affected - Danelia knew long beforehand what they would be, these tears. And how accurate the most, it seems, the most unexpected advice of the chief director of our theater, Andrei Alexandrovich Goncharov, always turns out to be when we are preparing a new performance! ..

So, that's what is important in the fate of an actor: success and a thoughtful director?

No, on the contrary: the director, and then success. But the beginning of all beginnings, of course, is dramaturgy.

What are your requirements for it?

Well, any actor will tell you that he is interested in playing a character that is ambiguous, bright, reliable ... It is very important for me that in the script, in the play, whether he struggled, suffered, made mistakes, rejoiced at a living person, so alive that, it seems, slash along the line - blood will come through. A person, and not a personification of some, even a very true acting idea. You have never seen such oddities: a filming is underway, and suddenly some actor starts to get nervous, pointing his finger at the script, announcing that he will not play “this” because there is nothing to play here, and it is impossible to pronounce the text “humanly” - so cloth written. The saddest and most amusing thing here is different: it happens that a screenwriter appears, corrects something on the sheet in half an hour, and everything is already “dramatic”, there is already “something to play”. I think it's handicraft. Well, it can’t be, your will, good dramaturgy can be created in half an hour on the set! Behind real dramaturgy there is always work, a huge personal suffering of the writer. I feel Leskov's pain playing Katerina Izmailova in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Katya was born free, for happiness, but she lives almost as a slave in a merchant's house - so I feel Leskov's rage because she had such a share, and I am charged with the author's rage. I plunge headlong into the tragedy of Katerina - the tragedy of a whole soul, torn by pangs of conscience and a humiliated life, a musty and terrible "racist" reality. I feel the power of drama when I play Luska in Mikhail Bulgakov's Run. And what talent one had to have in order to show through the prism of brilliant laughter how Ostrovsky managed to do it in the comedy “Our People - Let's Settle,” the wolfish grin of the young bourgeoisie, taking the place of the semi-patriarchal Russian merchant class. A strong playwright invites an actor to co-create - you strive to become on a par with great literature ...

But you all talked about the theater... How did the dramaturgy of cinema please you recently?

I have already spoken about the "Autumn Marathon". A very peculiar character happened to be embodied in the film by V. Tregubovich "Leaving - go away" according to the script of the excellent film writer V. Merezhko. My heroine, a lonely young woman Marina, having lived with her legal husband for eight years, drove him away "for tediousness." It's sad alone, but is it more fun with the unloved? Doesn't she have the right to dream of a strong feeling?

The role of Nadezhda, the wife of the brilliant chess player Alekhine, in the film White Snow of Russia, directed by Y. Vyshinsky and directed by a script written by him together with grandmaster A. Kotov, was a new character for me. A Russian noblewoman, a brilliantly educated woman, Nadezhda is very hard going through separation from her homeland in exile, and almost deliverance - an absurd death in a car accident.

A completely different character, a different role - our contemporary, a young woman who already has ten children, and she is immensely happy with this, I played with pleasure in the film by Y. Egorov based on the script by A. Inin "Once twenty years later."

In general, it seems that my film roles become more complicated with time: if at the beginning the screen offered me more “open” characters - say, the same “sweet woman” or citizen Nikanorova, then the last few roles are marked by great psychologism.

How do you explain this? What role can the film director "X" offer Natalia Gundareva in his future film, seeing her, for example, in "Autumn Marathon"?

You know, explaining and predicting is, after all, a matter of criticism, which, unfortunately, is not always done as thoughtfully as one would like. We have somehow developed a certain general “stating” style in criticism - regarding the present and non-binding forecasts “wait and see” - in conversations about the future. Of course, I'm not talking about individual amazingly wise and subtle performances. You see, my mother, my relatives like everything that I play. Well, who will help me figure out what the success of the role of the merits of my acting art, and what, say, from the recognition of an embodied character? How to continue to live, what to play, what innovations can be expected from me and where, without knowing it, have I already set foot on the dangerous path of self-repetition? Painful, extremely important questions for an actor. And then, after all, sometimes what happens: while you play a lot and seem to be successful - in criticism it’s all a panegyric; failure, failure, without which our life is unthinkable - and that's it, silence.

In criticism - real, artistic - the extension of the actor's fate, the extension of art in general.

How is an image created?

It's almost always difficult for me. Only a “sweet woman” I somehow immediately “saw”: a synthetic fur coat, a green crimplene dress, a nylon wig, slightly worn heels ... And so - there are always a million doubts, long reflections about the role. It happens: you seem to be all electrified, all your spiritual experience is in motion, everything you read, experienced, heard, and the image does not add up - and that's it! So it was with Katerina from Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, until the image of flight appeared. I suddenly saw Katya with arms-wings spread wide - so she went to everything: to her bitter happiness, to murders, to hard labor - and the role receded and the face of a person stood out. But even the gesture that came happily, the musical rhythm, the intonation is just the first push, everything is refined and polished a thousand times later...

So, then, acting is still a job?

Rehearsals, the process of sculpting the image - yes, work. It is akin to how - sorry for the pomp - the sculptor cuts off everything superfluous from a stone block, releasing a beautiful image. And the appearance of an actor in public, whether it be a stage or a movie, is a holiday, not everyday life, this is the hour of the triumph of your art.

In 1981, ten years after the start of acting, Gundareva, in response to an interviewer's question, willingly spoke about her arrival in art. (Then she will return to this episode of her biography more than once, recalling all the new details.)

But the main content of this interview is the analysis of the roles played, their correlation with life impressions.

Natalya Georgievna, can you remember when you first felt an actress in yourself?

It's hard to say when. Maybe at school, in literature classes, when they read “by roles”? .. You know, we go through, say, “The Inspector General” and now we read aloud: I am for Anna Andreevna, someone is for Khlestakov. I loved it very much ... I also resorted to singing lessons with pleasure: our Bronislava Yanovna was for some reason sure that we were all born vocalists, and I didn’t want to dissuade her ... Then the Palace of Pioneers, TYuM ...

Excuse me, but what is TYUM?

Theater of young Muscovites.

Here you played the first role?

Yes, the mother in Wild Dog Dingo. Do not be surprised, I always looked older than my peers, and I was most often entrusted with precisely such “adult” roles.

Immediately from school - to the theater institute?

No, it wasn't that simple... I left the tenth grade after quarreling with one teacher. I studied in the evening, worked in a design bureau, studied at preparatory courses ... I decided to become a builder, I had already passed two exams - when a friend suddenly runs in: “Natasha, is it true that you are entering MISI ?! She gone crazy! Immediately bring the documents to us, to Shchukinskoye! For some reason I listened...

Do you think you were lucky as an actor?

Certainly lucky; I was invited to the theater immediately, and a year later - to the cinema. By the way, it happened here, in Leningrad, when Vitaly Melnikov started working on the painting Hello and Goodbye.

One day, while talking with one, of course, a talented and popular artist, I started a conversation about why he often acts in mediocre films. In response, I heard a whole theory about the “mysteriousness” of the film process, about the impossibility of foreseeing the result in advance, and so on ... But now, recalling your work in cinema, I see no need to ask such a question. How, Natalya Georgievna, do you manage to "get" good roles and good films with such a sniper?

What do I have to do with it? Thanks to the directors ... By the way, in the cinema I have only had three central roles all the time, if I did two or three a year, maybe nothing would have happened ... I remember when they offered to play a “sweet woman”, it even became scary: an hour and a half on the screen, from frame to frame - “a painfully dear face” ... I'm bored with the audience! It is necessary to invent something so that they are not bored ... In each scene - look for the paradoxical in order to sharpen the sense of essence. (They recall that Alexey Dykyy, each time starting a rehearsal, said: “What will we surprise with?”) In Anna Dobrokhotova, I wanted not only to expose her egoism and spiritual satiety, but to make the viewer feel her loneliness and fear, which Anna hides behind carpets and sofas ... After this picture, I painfully wanted to play a completely different role, a completely different character - open, humane, reliable, and it was as if they overheard my heart: they offered "citizen Nikanorov." Then a new gift - Nadya Kruglova: in this picture - "Once Twenty Years Later" - I wanted to bow low, low to all mothers ... It seems that both the role and the whole film were well received, but I was anxious. You see, probably, in the soul of every actor there is a fear of oblivion. They recently offered two roles, but I refused, because they seemed to me a passed stage. It seems that she acted according to her conscience, but suddenly the directors will conclude that, they say, they are conceited, and they will stop inviting them to act? In general, she refused, and her heart trembles like a sheep's tail.

When you just talked about the “sweet woman”, it seemed to me that some kind of sympathy for your heroine was also visible in your words. Did I understand you correctly?

Absolutely. I try to somehow justify even my most “negative” heroine, I look for a good beginning in her ... For example, Gubenko offered me an episodic role in Wounded Wounds. I read the script - and even shuddered. “Kolya,” I say, “why is she so angry?” Gubenko explains: "I need her as a symbol of evil." Filming has begun. I dressed up in a Japanese robe, put on make-up, try, twist and turn - it doesn’t work. I can't, that's all! The thought haunts: why is she so evil? Finally she came up with: she has a disabled husband and no children of her own. One in such a situation is ready to kiss someone else's child, and the other begins to hate. In general, I “justified” it for myself and then I was already able to act in film ... And so I suffer every time. It is very important for me that the viewer of any of my heroines believed exactly - any. And if I play, say, an evil person, but at the same time I reveal something good in him, then, if an evil person finds himself in the cinema among the audience, he, I am sure, will begin to look for this good in himself too. Because I am convinced: you cannot burn out evil in a person with evil - this will make him even more hardened, especially if he has a strong personality.

How does one's own biography help in the work on the image - at least one example?

There are roles: I read the script - and it is already in front of you in detail, as it was with "Sweet Woman". Then, of course, a huge and difficult work, but all the same, the role in its entirety is clear to you. And it happens the other way around: you can’t imagine everything in your heroine, but you know one line on which you build the whole image ...

You merge so much with your characters on the screen that you probably can't get rid of them in life?

It happens ... I remember when I starred in "Sweet Woman", then under the influence of this rollicking lady I even colloquial manner has changed: it has become, you know, such a “tram”, open sound ... However, I “settle in” all of them in advance - both on the street and at home, in order to get used to it better, and then, on the set or on stage, this is no longer think. But this happens mostly unconsciously. Let's say I'm peeling potatoes, and in my thoughts - at a performance: I run in, I say a monologue ...

Here, Natalya Georgievna, you remembered the theater. Do you think that the experience of a theater actress helps in filming?

There is such a thing as theatricality. Often it is pronounced with an ironic undertone, but I, being an ardent supporter of modern manner games, at the same time I adore this very “theatricality”. There are several parts of the Dulcinea de Toboso TV movie where I felt like I was opening up like I was in a theatre! If the whole picture were like that, it would turn out to be a good musical ...

Did you have to fight for a role, to prove that it was you who should play it?

Each screen test for a role is, in fact, a fight, but you don’t know your opponent. And in the theater there was a case when, replacing an actress who suddenly left, two days before the premiere, she prepared the role of Lipochka in Bankrupt. A similar situation arose on the eve of the release of the play “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”. However, each performance is a self-affirmation...

If we return to the cinema, what kind of audience, in your opinion, are you most interested in?

My main audience is, of course, women, simple women. Especially, apparently, they understand my heroines in the countryside. After the picture “Autumn”, a letter came to the film studio from near Kursk: “Tell comrade Smirnov that he is doing well, because he films not only professional artists, but also us, ordinary people. The peasant woman Gundareva perfectly played the milkmaid Dusya ... ”I received many letters after the film“ Once Upon a Twenty Years Later ”. One admits: "You reminded me of my mother." Another: “My sister died in the war, she was as kind as you ...” Once a woman comes up in the subway: “We always expect a lot from you ...” How terrible it is when much to be expected...

Let's fantasize. Let's say today you have a very, very free day. Where will you go? What will you do?

Totally free? Then the first thing - in the pool. I love water so much that I often see it in a dream, as if I were swimming - at a depth, without a mask, like an amphibian man ... Then I would knit it (I have a whole bag of knitting here). Then I would go to the Russian Museum to stand for a long, long time at the painting by Marc Chagall “The Walk” ... And I also like to paint flowers in watercolor. True, my flowers are not real: for example, a carnation may not look like a carnation at all, but for me it is a carnation, my carnation ...

In a long interview taken from Gundareva by theater critic N. Staroselskaya in the same 1981, the actress’s answer to the last question is very important: it contains one of the meaningful elements of her aesthetics and even worldview.

Tell me, Natalya Georgievna, what would you like to play in the theater or in the cinema?

I don't know... I've already talked about what this is interesting, what most concerned about: what I can't play. At least at first glance. For some new quality, you need a lot good stuff, but for now they offer me - especially in the cinema - what has already happened. I often refuse, but there is always work in the theater and cinema, so I can probably afford to read fiction for myself without thinking about what I would like to play from it. Read not selfishly, without guesswork...

It seems to me that in order to be understood today, it is absolutely not necessary to develop new themes, characters. I have already spoken about my conviction: it is not the present day itself that is modern, but the eternal, hidden in it. This makes up our life and does not cease to excite a person. The pace of production, production worries and conflicts are changing, becoming obsolete, but people, their relationships, their ability to be humane, to do things remain ...

There remains such a difficult, everyday human life, love, death, betrayal, loneliness ... That is why Leskov and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Gorky seem modern to me. That is the value of Trifonov and Astafiev, Rasputin and Aitmatov...

Modern plays should often take us back to our past. Indeed, in our today's rhythms, way of thinking, it is sometimes so necessary to “stop, look back” ... When a person thinks about the “eternal” - about life and death, about good and evil - he cannot betray anyone. Maybe today we so often turn to the classics and that's why?

And to modern literature, in my opinion, this has the most direct relation. It exists only when there are living, deep, eternal characters - something that cannot be understood today.

We already know from the previous presentation that Gundareva did not like questions about what is more important for her - theater or cinema. And if they insistently sought an answer, she invariably said: theater. But once, on the eve of the Day of Soviet Cinema, in the article “Love for All Seasons,” the actress declared her love for cinema. Natalya Georgievna is easy to understand - the cinema brought her immense popularity. But this article is also interesting because it nostalgically reminds of the extraordinary attitude to the beloved art of the audience, which was back in the early 80s, when the article was written, and which, unfortunately, collapsed ten years later along with the collapse of the former country ...

“I am an actress, and for me cinema is a huge part of my life. I shoot often, I get tired to the point of impossibility and sometimes I think: when will these shootings end, finally? But as soon as they end, I already feel like I miss them, and I'm already waiting for a call from the studio, and, worrying, I'm going to the first meeting with the director. And when I read the script, I rejoice in that future and look forward to it, in which I will again go on the set. And it will start, spin... Such familiar and sweet days when you are preparing for shooting, you arrive at the studio, you go to the costume designers, then to the dressing room and, finally, to the pavilion. And after the end of filming, joy again: meeting with the audience. And more - excitement: how will people perceive your new work?

I really love the picture “One day twenty years later”, in which she played the mother of ten children, a woman with a difficult but wonderful fate. Naturally, I was happy when last year this film won the Golden Plateau award in Italy, when I was awarded the prize for the best performance of a female role at the International Film Festival in Varna. I'm not talking about this out of a desire to brag. I just want to say today about the recognition that our cinematography has won abroad. Here is another of many examples. Three years ago, the United States bought five paintings from us. The success of Soviet films in America was so great that a year later a "Russian Film Cinema" was opened in New York.

In our country, cinematographers and their work enjoy a huge national love. I once happened to participate in the well-known program "Comrade Cinema", which has existed for several years. Performances were held in Luzhniki. Not a single empty seat in the stadium! People do not just go to see the actor - they are sincerely interested in our work! And they are waiting for a response from the cinema to everything that worries them. That is why, when we meet with the audience, there is not just an exchange of views about this or that fate in the film, but also a heated, principled dispute. Real, genuine and understood by people art strikes that fire of restlessness in human souls, for the sake of which we are working. The film comes out on the screens - and you forget that it was difficult on the set, that you went on expeditions and didn’t see loved ones for a long time, didn’t eat, didn’t rest, that there were minutes, even hours of despair, when something didn’t work out, and suffered, didn’t I found a place for myself ... In the end, all this is a thing of the past. But the recognition of people, their kindness and cordiality, their trust, their love for our beautiful art - this is the main thing.

How to explain such interest of people to cinema? This is not such a simple question. It worries both those who "make" cinema and those who study it, sociologists, psychologists... Of course, I don't undertake to give an answer right now. But together with everyone I share the love for this beautiful art.”

In a long article "Time Needs a Hero" in the professional magazine Art of Cinema (No. 12, 1982), Natalya Gundareva again returns to her idea that the concept of the modern includes centuries-old ideas and moods.

“What is a modern hero? What is modernity? For me, what is modern is what is for centuries, what has existed for a long time and will exist for a long time to come, what worried many generations before us and after us will worry ...

It is well known: there is a play, scripts, films - ephemeral. It would seem that they reflect today, written and put on the topic of the day. But tomorrow they will become obsolete. And Joan of Arc and Dulcinea of ​​Toboso, who lived many centuries ago, remain modern heroines. Why? Because they are looking for an answer to questions that always worry a person: why do people live? how to live? and what is true and enduring in life?

What are we all fighting for? What are the efforts of artists? To harmonize personality. The harmony of feelings, the harmony of human relationships, the harmony of your life's work and your hearth - that's what worries all of us. It so happened that all my movie heroines are just busy searching for this harmony, everyone wants to find their place in life, to find themselves. In other words, decide eternal question being. Who are you? What are you for? Why was he born into this world? And Anya Dobrokhotova from "Sweet Woman", and Katya Nikanorova, and Nina from "Autumn Marathon", and Nadia Kruglova from the film "Once Twenty Years Later" - change internally, reach for something unknown, but bright.

In the same article, the fear of repetition expressed by Gundareva, the desire and need to look for something new in herself and in her roles are important.

“In general, I now have the feeling that it was easier for me before. And play and talk. Everything was easier, because everything was just beginning, and now you need to change your old self so as not to repeat yourself. And this is very difficult. After all, you have to draw from yourself, so you need stops, periods of accumulation, or something.

There are not so many directors who babysit actors, educate them, follow their creative destiny. More often it happens that they take on a role mainly according to the principle: “She has already played it - let her play it again!” But the viewer judges differently: “It already happened, it’s not so interesting anymore!” Therefore, for an actor, I think it is very important to be able to wait, to be able to choose. When they offer me scripts now, and I see that I have already played something similar, I refuse. After the film “Once Upon a Twenty Years Later”, I immediately refused two scripts where I was offered the main roles. I preferred several small roles - it seemed to me that I could do something new in them.

In the film by V. Kremnev "Children's World" I played a woman completely devoted to her only late child. Unlike my heroines with a sharp, explosive temperament, this woman is lonely, withdrawn. She says about herself: "I'm a terrible person, I don't trust anyone!" It was a new turn for me, a new move. It turned out the role or not - I do not know. I don't usually watch stuff. The picture comes out on the screens, I put on dark glasses, pull my head into my shoulders and go to the cinema to watch a movie with the audience.

"Children's World" is finished, and now from morning to evening I'm filming with director E. Tashkov in the television film "Teenager" based on the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky...

Returning to reflections on the modern hero, I will say frankly: I dream that our filmmakers would boldly follow the untrodden paths - abandon the usual methods of depicting characters and destinies, create their heroes alive, full-blooded, learning from life its diversity and variability.

Different people come to the cinema, and everyone has their own worries and problems. Everyone is looking for answers to some pressing questions. And you can find these answers only in life. Including in the life of on-screen heroes. And as in life there are no identical people, so they should not be on the screen.

Returning in one of her interviews to the issue of the relationship between theatre, cinema and television, Gundareva again and again speaks about the decisive importance in the artist's work of life impressions, his human and creative position.

And what personally helps you on the set?

First, good dramaturgy. And the ideal image can convince the viewer if it is written out in the script with psychological accuracy. Secondly, observation helps me personally. I always try to look around. I am interested in life and people - how they look, what they think, how they talk. I remember, at the Moscow railway station in Leningrad, I saw two middle-aged women say goodbye. It seemed strange to me that one of them kept throwing her head back. I came closer and suddenly I see: yes, she has eyes full of tears! Then this detail, peeped in life, became the key to the image of citizen Nikanorova: my heroine, who hides longing and pain under the mask of cheerful swagger, throws her head proudly in the same way, but only so that tears do not inadvertently shed from her eyes.

I don’t like to theorize, because, in truth, only one thing helps in the work: the feeling that the role excites, that I myself understand well what the play or script is about. Once I read in one review: “In The Sweet Woman, Gundareva discovered a new social type of urban bourgeois of peasant origin.” Maybe this is so, but, frankly, when I took on the role of Anna Dobrokhotova, I was thinking about something else: in my life I am very hurt by emotional dullness, inability to communicate, unwillingness to notice others. My heroine is concerned about only one question: what will I get from this? A woman, on the other hand, vitally, biologically needs the wisdom of sacrifice and kindness.

I always play about what makes me happy or sad, because every day in my life I pose questions to myself, to which I, Natasha Gundareva; you just need to answer or formulate your attitude.

When I get a role, I never get the feeling that the battle is won. After all, the victory is not in the fact that you were approved for shooting - no, from this moment the battle is just beginning. And then I am even overcome with delight from a presentiment of what is to be done. The relationship with the role, quivering, fragile, is always born only in the creative process, in joint work with the playwright and director. Maybe that's why I love the theater so much, with its live stage, long rehearsals, the ability to verify and refine my heroine even after the premiere. True, I also love cinema, I miss the set.

What about television?

Still less. There is a lot of haste here, no thoroughness. Shooting shifts are short: shooting an episode in three hours is just flour. However, television, in my opinion, helped a lot that film directors believed in me. Indeed, in the cinema, many actors are in danger of constantly using what they have already found. And on television, I was lucky enough to play completely different roles, even such polar ones as Marfenka in The Cliff and Mirandolina in The Innkeeper, Catherine II in The Captain's Daughter and Dunka in Lyubov Yarovaya, Smeraldina in Truffaldino from Bergamo and Tatyana Pavlovna in "Teenager". There is even the experience of a one-man show - on television, page after page, I read Leskov's "Dumb Artist". In my opinion, without television, no matter how you treat it, the formation, even the very existence of a modern actor is simply impossible.

Theatre, cinema, television... How do you get enough for everything?

Lacks. And I still envy those who get enough sleep, who can manage themselves and their free time. After all, I love to knit, do housework, cook, draw. But I just can't play or work a lot. Because the game is my passion.

An interesting and frank confession was made by Natalya Georgievna in an extensive interview for Literaturnaya Gazeta in September 1984. Concluding a conversation with a journalist, she admitted that, going on stage, she was worried, like an aspiring actress.

“Our people are kind, they treat actors well, they recognize them, they ask questions. But what is hard? A responsibility. I began to notice that now, when I release premieres, I am much more worried than ten years ago. Here, for example, "Agent 00", a recent premiere. The first ten performances - well, it's ridiculous! - I drank valerian during the intermission. I went on stage, my jaw was trembling, my voice began to tremble.

Once, Boris Evgenievich Zakhava, the rector of the school, told me: “Natasha, in art, never prove anything to anyone.” Here you understand with your head that he is right, but still your heart beats. And it seems like you still need to prove something. Every time you step on stage...

Without resorting to loud words and thoughtful terms, Gundareva in a short answer in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper (September 1984) spoke about the most important function of art - to serve people.

“I recently watched “Sweet Woman” and realized that life has gone far ahead. Meanwhile, you must not get tired, you must certainly go forward, be sure to do something. This is how I understand the modern woman. Because otherwise tomorrow stay in yesterday. You have to live hard all the time: either have ten children, or be the mistress of an orphanage and raise other people's children, or, if you want, be lonely, but again, do something for someone - for tomorrow. My happiness is that I always had something to do for people. I can't imagine how you can live without ever doing anything to anyone. As a result, you remain alone and then - emptiness.

The beginning of your creative life is connected with the Mayakovsky Theater. Are you sure that you will work in it all your life?

I have always loved my home. My home is my theater."

In her own way, the same idea was expressed by Gundareva in the TV room of "Soviet Culture" in early 1985:

“Is it not under the influence of the classical heroines of Russian literature, who have always aroused compassion and sympathy in readers and viewers, that some changes have occurred in our contemporaries on the screen? If two or three years ago, the heroines rushed around the big and small screens in search of personal happiness, that is, a beloved man, now they are more concerned about the happiness of their loved ones.

An interviewer for Literaturnaya Gazeta in March 1990 began with the question that was raised in the first interview with Natalya Gundareva, when the actress called herself clay.

The answer of Natalia Gundareva to this question and to many other questions of journalist E. Krasheninnikova testified to the deep and mature mind of the actress, to serious spiritual accumulations, to her rich and varied professional and human experience.

This interview captured the spiritual world of Gundareva in the troubled years of changes that were taking place in the country, and a dull echo sounded in her thoughts.

Natalya Georgievna, in one of your interviews you compared an actor to clay in strong directorial hands. But a creative person, it would seem, does not tolerate pressure. And doesn't the clay actor get in the way of his own individuality? Is there a contradiction here?

I don't see a contradiction. It seems to me that the richer, more powerful the actor, the more he knows, the more he sees, the more he feels, the more opportunities he has to penetrate into the world of another person. Of many people. You object - but you need to submit to someone else's will. So this is the job! I don’t think that, for example, Dzhigarkhanyan, Leonov or Smoktunovsky were initially so stupid as to count on complete and uncontrolled freedom in the theater: I am a person, and everyone else - the playwright, the director, and the actors - should be around me "rotate". No, in my opinion, the higher a person is, the more tolerant and attentive he is to others. Here we are rehearsing the play "Victoria?.." based on the play by the English classic Tarence Rettigan - the love story of Admiral Nelson and Lady Hamilton. For the first time - and I'm the nineteenth season at the Mayakovsky Theater - I have now encountered Armen Borisovich Dzhigarkhanyan in "dense" work. And I see that he is much more receptive than all of us to the director's remarks, he treats dramaturgy more carefully. Because God breathed into his ear this understanding, patience, a wise attitude towards another person, his thoughts.

And vice versa, the smaller the person as a person, the more ambitions, and the worse he plays. Because everything is narrowed down, just a penny - and the smoke is thinner, and the pipe is lower. Such people will fuss, theorize, prove something, because they cannot understand. To understand is to do. And because they can neither understand nor do it, they start spreading demagoguery, talk shop, offer their own solutions, which they cannot implement either. They probably need to delay the moment they enter the stage, when they ask you about the Hamburg score: can you or can't you?

Just do not perceive "clay" as something amorphous and passive. Yes, compliance. But also freedom. In rehearsal, I can do whatever the director wants, and then I show what I want. Because I understand: he tries, and I try. We are both looking.

But, if you like, in our profession, as in no other, lies a great betrayal of itself. When the body is yours, but the soul is someone else's. And there's nothing you can do about it, you have to betray yourself in order to play the other person well. Only by renouncing yourself completely and submitting to something that is not characteristic of you, you come to the opening of the role.

Probably, in some things you need to completely trust the director. But not all of them are in tune with you, are they?

Of course, when you have your own director, or rather, he has you, this is happiness. For example, Andrey Aleksandrovich Goncharov, with whom I have been working for many years. He's already used to me. And another director, let's say Portnov, will see something new, even unexpected for me. Therefore, it is not only interesting, but also necessary to try both. It's easier to say no. Although the directors are different, and one is more interesting, the other is less. The third is not interesting at all.

Sometimes an actor in all respects is much higher than the next director or the role that is offered. He understands that this is another conjuncture or just a weak thing that has nothing to do with art. And it still takes. It is clear that you need to earn money, somehow feed, feed your family. But isn't the actor here losing something more than he gains? And irreversible.

The fact is that it is never known, with very rare exceptions, whether it will be an act of high art or a complete nightmare. Sometimes an average script, an average director, and then you are declared the best actress of the year. It turns out that the film hit those pain points that are very consonant with today. And sometimes the script, the actors - everything is wonderful. And yet it is not clear why the picture was made at all.

Of course, when I was young in the theater, I was given roles that I didn’t like myself. But how could I refuse? I'm at work. People naively think: ah, art! And this is a factory. We have the same production as everywhere else. With a financial plan, with bonuses for social competition, with thirteenth salaries.

But in the cinema you are free to choose?

Volna. But sometimes you feel that the material is weak, but you still hope to pull it out. It used to pull out. But you can play great, and the camera is set so that only your ear is visible. And even though you play, at least don't play ... Here you need everything to come together - the director came up with it, the actors felt it, the cameraman understood and shot it.

And then ... It is very difficult to determine where is art and where is non-art. Let's say Sokurov. Now they talk a lot about him. Only some say that a genius lives next to us, while others - how do they even give him money for shooting? Or Kira Muratova. For some, she is an outstanding director, and someone can not understand anything. And it is not known what is still needed. Well, we will create only elite films. And people don't understand them. Here is a working man sitting - golden hands or a teacher with a higher education. They would be happy, but they do not understand. They say that it is necessary to proceed from their level. But it's terrible! But the opposing calls are also terrible: no, guys, we must pull the viewer! Don’t pull me, if I don’t like it, I looked once and don’t want to anymore. I turn off.

They say that real, really high art is understandable to everyone. It's also not always true. For example, many years ago I took my mother to see Fellini's Juliet and the Spirits. I really liked the picture. Mom was completely disappointed. I said: “Mom, you know, this is such an associative movie. You need to let the person figure it out.” And she told her the whole film, not in flashes of individual pieces, but in plot. Everything that Fellini gave me and said: now, whatever you want, come up with such a story for yourself. Mom listened and said: “Oh, well, if he took it off like that!” I say: "Well, he's different, you know, he thinks like that." Mom: “In general, of course, he thinks unusually, interestingly, now I understand.” To do this, it was necessary to arrange some educational program, although my mother, let's say, is a near-theatrical person, she more possibilities go to theaters and movies. And what about a simple average person, why is he to blame for not understanding Sokurov or Muratova? I repeat, it is rather difficult to determine where art is. And when you take on a job, you don’t always know either ... And we will never agree here. Probably, there should be everything, because people are completely different, and they themselves will figure out what they need.

Are there other people's works that you treat with envy, with a feeling that you are ahead of yourself or that you are beyond your powers?

You know, it can't be called envy. Rather, I experience a feeling of helplessness, from which I can, for example, cry. Once I listened to Vishnevskaya sing in La Traviata and cried because I could never sing like that. With regard to cinema and drama theater, such direct and acute manifestations, perhaps, were not. Although I really love actors, especially good ones. I admire some of their work, I start looking like a dog with enthusiastic eyes - wow, what kind of people there are! How can a person do that? This is some unusual person! Then my profession is forgotten, I cease to feel involved.

Do you tend to create idols for yourself?

I think the creation of idols is characteristic of youth. At thirteen, you can madly love, worship, tremble. And I collected postcards with portraits of actors and idolized someone. And then comes reasonable love. From the actors I admire today, I'm just trying to learn. understand their secret. Find answers to the questions that plagued me. Even though I know it's pointless. You can't fly to such galaxies anyway. You can even do harm: you won’t gain anything, but you will break yourself. And probably everyone should answer the eternal questions himself. You need to find your own way. But experience, one's own and someone else's, is also, of course, needed. Still - incessant, exhausting work from morning to night, from night to morning. With it comes experience and clears the path.

One person lives in my heart for a long time. Great actor, great worker Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. And the more I read him, I read about him, the more relentlessly he follows me. Or am I behind him, I don’t know ... But if they ask: “Natasha, would you like to become the second Chaliapin?” - I will answer: "No!" Some actors are proud when people talk about them: he is the second Nicholson. Or: she is the new Eleonora Duse. I don't want to be no second, fifth, one hundred and forty-fifth. I want to live, rejoice, cry, hate, admire in my life. And to be an actress Gundareva in the native Mayakovsky Theater. Even if not for the whole world, but for Herzen Street, the scale does not depress me at all. Trying to be myself in the first generation. Unless, of course, I have something.

But do you yourself feel that you belong only to Russian culture or world culture too? After all, many of us put Gundareva on a par with Meryl Streep and Liza Minnelli. Don't you feel in a certain cage because there is no way out, say, to the best scenes in the world? Would you like to work with world-class actors and directors?

No, I don't feel like I'm in a cage. I believe that our actors and directors are no worse than in the West. Probably, because of an indiscriminate love for everything foreign, not realizing that diamonds are disappearing nearby, we bury placers, which we are rich in, maybe a hundred times more. We are digging in with the same bucket, which has been digging something for more than seventy years ... Yes, they have more opportunities. Thanks to advertising, on which colossal money is spent. But if you carefully consider everything that they do there, not everything is smooth either. And the gorgeous Liza Minnelli and Meryl Streep have just plain bad jobs. We only know about the Oscars...

I repeat: we have wonderful actors and directors. We really are a Left-handed country and we can shoe a flea. But it turns out that no one needs it. Now, when a lot is possible, it turned out that nothing is required, except for porn pictures, well-dressed films on historical themes, with beautiful women, preferably with bare breasts and some pieces in bed. And then, we are so behind in the technology of film production that, I'm afraid, we will never catch up with them.

Of course, as an actress, I would like to work with, say, Bergman, Strehler, Fellini. For myself, I would consider this a great actor's happiness. True, it is not known how it would all end. But it is still interesting to penetrate, to open this veil. Well, to see the world in general! In this sense, the "cell" probably still exists. At least I am not deprived at all, and I have already been to America four times, and I have traveled to other countries, but everything is within tight limits: work, shooting. I've never had the opportunity to just take my time to see...

Is the impression strong or can you live without it?

Usually, when one goes abroad for the first time, especially to capitalist countries, it is so amazing! And out of spite, or something, I decided for the first time: so what's special? But with each trip, on the contrary, I am more and more amazed. Of course, they live very powerfully there! One of the eastern, it seems, teachings explains why a person does not live life to the fullest. Because we always think either about yesterday - oh, I'm yesterday! I smoke a cigarette - it has already passed, it is unique. And all this time I was not sure where. And so, I think we all live here. Sometimes I just catch myself thinking: Natasha, stop! You will go, but it will be in another hour. Just sit down and go. Why are you going somewhere now? Now sit, drink coffee and look at the world... And there they know how to live every second. It is very important. When I still manage to overcome the constant fever, the "race" in the brain, time stretches and fills up.

Apparently, every actor brings the experience of his life to the stage, to the screen. Isn't the reverse process taking place when the played images begin to gradually influence his behavior, mannerisms, character? Doesn't the actor blur his own unique face in this way?

Well, who's like. My roles affect me only in the course of work. Let's say I play a wench in "Sweet Woman" - many people remember this film - and I notice that in life I begin to walk and talk the same way ... But I understand that these are my tests. Shooting ends - and there is no trace left. I just need to get into character for a while. In order to then go out. Otherwise it would be boring. They say that in the theater it is necessary, you know, as in life. Why confuse? For myself, I do not combine one and the other at all. Although some can't resist. And I, probably, like you, more than once witnessed how a person simply changes exaggeratedly. You knew one person, time passes, and suddenly such a ma-ne-ra appears. And already such a thief ... Still, you need to have stronger brains. For example, every evening I pray to God and ask: “Lord, save me, do not deprive me of my mind. Take everything, just do not deprive the mind ... "

Do you believe in God?

I believe in God, but not frenziedly. Once in a church in the Menshikov Tower, at the Kirov Gates, I heard the priest utter the wonderful words: "God is love." This is what I believe. I believe that the whole colossal supply of positive things - the best aspirations, dreams, love - over the course of many millennia and in other civilizations that we don’t even know about - all this, unlike the flesh, does not die. And probably, the spiritual experience of mankind will be transformed into some new, higher, energy that has not yet been explored by people. After all, once upon a time we did not know electricity, microwaves, or something else. True, I must immediately say: I am an earthly person, completely devoid of shamanism. But why sometimes it’s like someone told you, or some kind of premonition, which then comes true, or you go somewhere for the first time, but it seems that there was already this smell once and this tree stood here? Probably, the relationship with the spiritual past still exists. And in order to somehow designate this energy, they found a convincing visual equivalent - the face of God. There were icons, legends about him. And I believe in a God who is love.

Is it possible to achieve inner harmony in our disharmonious, decaying time?

Some succeed. Unfortunately, I can't. Probably, then it is necessary to quit the profession, because it, like no other, requires publicity. When you start interacting with fellow citizens, with the street, with the world, then chaos sets in. The discomfort is complete. Harmony, in my opinion, comes when one manages to distance oneself from everything, to go away - to a monastery, to a cell, to one's own narrow world. For example, we had an amazing person in the theater who corresponded with Sakharov when they were still punishing for it. He seems to have been a physicist himself, from the exiles. A highly intelligent, sensitive person with a biblical face. He worked for us, in my opinion, in a carpentry, fiddled with wood and did not want to communicate with the outside world anymore. It was also a kind of care.

Why? Every person, especially an artist, especially one who spends himself so mercilessly, has the right to a creative pause, even to a crisis. Finally, you just need to relax, accumulate strength, energy, soul. Think about everything that is happening around...

It seems to me that spiritual accumulations cannot be considered in such a way that there is a bucket and you need to wait until it will rain to fill it up. The soul is filled drop by drop. And my task is to run around the cities and villages, to the north, to the south, and collect everything drop by drop somewhere. I have no way to stop. Of course, I understand that I live on wear and tear. But this is a profession. And so it must be understood. I lived on the train for several months, because I went to Leningrad three times a week to shoot in a new film based on the script by Vitya Merezhko, “A Dog's Feast”. You wouldn’t wish such “journeys” on a dashing enemy! If you also take into account that I don’t sleep on trains ... But the role is painfully unusual for me.

They used to see me in images, as they say, magnificent. Maybe that's why I like my heroines because I introduce people into some kind of fairy tale. Depicting the mother of ten children, we are not so much talking about her problems as about the possibility of such a happy life. A sort of, you know, fog. And there were enough such vague roles. But here, in this movie, it's different. How can I refuse? It is forbidden! Nothing, I'll go. Then let's rest...

This scenario, at first glance, creepy, about two drunkards, for some reason I was very hooked. With all the horror, scuffles, despite the fact that they drink, it suddenly seemed: the picture could be very humane. Look at what's going on right now. Many have completely forgotten, I'm not talking about ideals, just about the elementary principles of a hostel. And these two, a man and a woman, being not even on the verge, but already beyond human being are very human. They understand that they are probably doomed not to jump out of the abyss into which life has pushed them. But they always feel a person next to them. And these seemingly fallen people have their own pride, dignity. They cannot fall lower than some so-called decent citizens who, say, take bribes, being at the height of their position ... And these two will never drink on other people's money, because there is dignity. Life accidentally pushes them together, they get into terrible situations together, but they get out of them as people, supporting each other. My partner Sergey Shakurov...

Do all the deformations of our society occur for you not tangentially, but through the heart?

You know, I've been trying to get away from everything lately. I almost never turn on the TV. You still know everything. I try not to read newspapers, I force myself not to become more active, not to delve into it, otherwise my soul becomes very angry. Cruel time. Lies are already elevated to the rank of communication at the level of the entire system. And no one wants to just work. There are very few truly decent people who have been brought up to work. Exterminated are the classes that lived and worked consciously. The best are exterminated. Now what? What kind of national pride are we talking about here? I saw how Americans love their country, are proud of it! And we talked for so long about patriotism, a sense of duty, allowing the country to be robbed and sold. They take away the pieces.

It always seemed to me that democracy is respect plus respect. And now, for some reason, it has become possible to seek out and make public the worst in any person, which, perhaps, he hides from himself. On this, too, someone earns privileges, makes a name for himself. Then it turns out that this “someone” is a decent scoundrel himself. And I believed in others and always believe. Maybe then I will be deceived, but I believe them.

Has this happened?

No, there were no big shocks. Probably because over the years it became less and less to communicate deeply. I try not to make friends and not to expand the circle of close acquaintances. I am a contact person, but I usually keep my distance, do not enter into close relationships that can reveal the failure of both parties. I'm very afraid of disappointment. In general, I came to the conclusion that in my life I have two girlfriends and they don’t look for good from good. After all, friendship requires a lot of time, effort, and I have a hard time with this. You also want peace.

With the advent of new times - vague and disturbing - material and everyday problems turned out to be in the focus of public attention, because everyone was affected by shortages, lack of money, anxiety about tomorrow.

Gundareva, a person with a heightened sense of life's problems, just like everyone else, peered into the approaching events, trying to maintain a sober assessment and faith in possible changes.

It is known that our cast-iron "Nika" "weighs" two thousand premium rubles. With "Oscar", of course, not to compare, our "lady" is much easier. But really, besides the award, did it bring you anything else?

Yes, actually, no change. In youth, the prize first of all confirms that the path has been chosen correctly and there are great hopes. And now I suddenly realized: the more prizes have already been received, the less there are left to receive. The State Prize, for example, is given once. And from what you have already been given, it becomes clear that most of your life has passed. I brought "Nika" home and thought: "Well, she must be the last one in my life." Although, maybe we are just not all too optimistic now. But, oddly enough, only work still holds on to the earth.

Doesn't your personal life matter to you?

So you can't compare. Of course it has. In my opinion, the absence of some important aspect of a person's life in general castrates. Love is also the highest thoughts. But my personal life rather relaxes me. And work mobilizes. Here you lie tired - that's it, I don't want anything else. And suddenly a call - and you are offered a good role. Where does the energy come from...

Actors are superstitious people. Do you also have your own signs?

Yes, in our theater they already know that I don’t like it when I meet a woman with an empty bucket or box, it seems to me that the performance will be empty, even if there are many spectators in the hall. Therefore, women from our services with empty buckets try not to come across to me, they even hide on purpose so as not to upset me. When I forget something in the dressing room and have to come back, I will definitely look in the mirror. Sometimes I feel that I do not need to drive, but when one day I really got into a car accident, there was no premonition.

Leading roles in films, theater, prizes, a car, a dacha... Can you say to yourself that you are a rich woman?

No I do not think so. In the theater, after all the raises, I have a salary of two thousand rubles a month. I used to get three hundred and fifty and that was enough for me. Now the cost of the consumer basket is more than three thousand. It turns out, already below the poverty line. The husband is an actor in our theater, and the salary is at the same level. My parents are pensioners, and of course I help them. Once, before a salary increase, we got into a conversation with one woman in the theater, and she told me: “Natasha, but you probably don’t care, you get half a million for the film.” Alas, the next rumors, I get about twenty thousand, and today this is not great money at all.

Yes, for a star, frankly, not much. Do you follow fashion, is it important for you to be well dressed?

I like to jump up sometimes, but I'm not a fashionista, I'm a working person. And then everywhere it became so dirty - on the set, even in the theater you have to change clothes. After all, they will make the situation in our country as in Western pictures, and they may not notice what kind of dirt is around. I cannot understand this.

What does it mean to "jump up"?

That is, dress especially smartly, look great, go somewhere. But I have such a mood, perhaps, once every five years, not more often. I always say that I am not a secular person and I have no special need for secular life.

But you live not far from the House of Cinema - do you at least visit here?

Not often, and usually I come right before the movie. And I also don’t go on a visit to “kill” someone with clothes. I have two old friends who have nothing to do with theater or cinema. When my husband and I come to them, we immediately begin to “live as a family”, that is, they already know that I will immediately demand a bathrobe, slippers, and we will stay with them for two days to chat for a long time.

Do you recognize the gossip that is being told about you?

Yes, sometimes. At one time, I was “married” with Sergei Shakurov - we filmed together with him, which means we traveled together, lived in the same hotel, we could often be seen together, and then we appeared together on television - it’s quite enough for people to draw the appropriate conclusions. Then I was “married out” to Alexander Mikhailov - his wife told me about this in a very funny way. They once received a call to arrange a concert with Sasha. Vera went to the phone, on the other end of the wire they were delighted and invited her to speak too. She is not an actress and therefore was very surprised: “What will I do?” They answered, too, they say, tell something. They persuaded for a long time, finally they began to say goodbye: "Goodbye, Natalya Georgievna." Vera, of course, everything immediately became clear. The inventions are incredible. Sometimes someone heard my random word, remembered it, retold it - and a whole event grew up.

The situation in the theater and cinema in general, of course, is sad, but still - what do you have in the near future?

I am not prone to panic - what if the theater is dispersed, and what if they stop making films ... The point is completely different. We used to have, as we called them, "Danish" performances, that is, for some date. I always knew that for two “Danish” they would give one wonderful one, and I was waiting for this hour. Now new people have arrived. They give money, but they have their own idea of ​​art, which sometimes terrifies me. Radzinsky has such a true phrase; "The more they hit, the more you call." I would start looking for how to hold out, survive in any situation.

Respecting the life and creative experience of Natalia Georgievna, some journalists expected from her an assessment of what she had lived, some kind of results. But Gundareva was still moving away from this.

You have a great opportunity to work - both in the theater and in cinema, on radio and television. And meet completely different interesting people. What do you remember? Who left a mark on the soul?

I think that selection in man occurs later. There comes a time to think about life, about what happened to him in his life, who was the most important in his life ... What events influenced the rest of his life. I don't have time yet. I am very grateful to all the people I met, because each of them left a mark on me. But I'm not posting photos of the people I've met yet. I'm still working...

And will you work for a long time?

As God wills.

Are you a leader or a follower?

I don't want to be led. One way or another, providence guides you through life, it tells you something, it denies you something. So it was, so it is and so it will be. But I am not a driven person. Sometimes I go in the wrong direction, but I try not to lose my bearings, I look around, I understand that I went in the wrong direction, and then I return to this stone, where it is written: who will go to the right ... who will go to the left ...

G. Melikyants, an interviewer for Izvestia, also asked the actress about the same.

Natalya Georgievna, you have been working at Mayakovka for more than twenty-five years, you can say that you have surpassed many in ranks and popularity, and you have become a kind of leader. Do they look at your mood in the theater? Are they waiting for your word?

Everyone wants to be considered. And as for the mood, I'm not sure that it would be of particular interest to anyone. How is it in the theatre? A group of leading actors is formed. They set the tone, or rather, the tone of the life of the troupe. Everyone is a character, but at the same time everyone goes their own way, not pretending to be each other's roles. Like a mighty bunch, a core, without it everything falls apart.

But among the leaders there are ... how to say ... the most leading ...

We have Andrey Aleksandrovich Goncharov. Far from being a young man. And you think: you get tired, and he is always in the theater. Someone is late for a rehearsal, but he never ... The balance in the troupe, the psychological "swing" - this is from him. Moreover, he himself is explosive, uneven. For Alla Balter, our theater seems to be the fourth; so she said in one interview that she had never worked so calmly anywhere ... The leader is the one who takes everything or a lot on his shoulders. I can't say the same about myself. It is difficult to understand someone else's life, it would be difficult to understand your own.

The content, nature and tone of the interview depends, as you know, on the professionalism of the interviewer. But even when the journalist was out of tune, was constrained or, conversely, unnecessarily cheeky, Gundareva knew how to put the conversation in the right direction and, despite some initial irritation, she was frank and serious in her answers, tried to speak out on a range of issues, her truly exciting.

Natalya Georgievna, you accepted the request for an interview with a certain degree of humility, but obviously without much joy. You don't like journalists at all?

How can you not love them "at all"? You are all very different... But I am saddened by the carelessness with which they write not only about me, but also about my comrades in the theater, about my colleagues. You can't write about artists without love. The trouble is that a journalist, especially a young one, wants to show himself at the expense of another person who has already achieved something in his life: but I’ll write something nasty about the same Gundareva! And they write. But I try never to settle scores, it's pointless. Probably, time forced the journalists to simply take such a tone, and it’s probably impossible to do otherwise.

I understand that the profession of an actor is replicated to the limit, I now get less than a baker who sells near the subway, but this does not mean that I can be treated with disdain. The journalists who come to me are often younger than me and very arrogant, believing that in the half hour that we talked, they managed to comprehend my “secret essence”. Yes, I am a contact person, it is easy for me to strangers, but this does not mean that I will pour out my soul to anyone. I think that I should only be interesting as an actress, so I can’t stand questions about my family, about habits, about what I eat, drink, wear and read. I am an actress who works all my life.

By the way, do you have a lot of unplayed roles?

I never thought about it. This is the most unproductive thing, because you immediately begin to get embittered: who didn’t let you play?! And it starts: this one, this one and this one. And also the circumstances and my own data, which did not allow me very much. Unplayed roles, dreams about them - it's like remorse. The heroine of one of my performances says: "Remorse is the most meaningless feeling."

Have you ever been overwhelmed by ambitious dreams of being the best in the theater?

Setting yourself the task of outplaying everyone is not a task at all. The theater, the stage, is not a boxing ring or a bullring. The late rector of the Theater School named after B.V. Shchukin B.E. Zahava once told me: “Never prove anything to anyone.” I follow this advice. But there is such a book, The Fourth Height, about Gulya Koroleva. After I read it as a child, it became clear to me: if you want to prove something, prove it to yourself first. And if, after an accident, I got behind the wheel again, it was only to get rid of the feeling of fear. But this does not mean that I will fight, proving how brave I am.

Of course, you know how much nerve and sweat is behind each role. Doesn't this take away the magic of live theater for you?

First, I don't really know how theater is "made". Only the director knows this. The actor, in essence, is not even secondary - he is tertiary, because there is a text, there is a director. I am glad that I managed to keep that childlike elation with which I watched The Fountain of Bakhchisarai with Galina Ulanova. How many years have passed, and I still go to the theater, treat it with the expectation of a miracle.

And to life?

I tried never to confuse life and theater. I love everything in this life, any weather, any mood. I do not believe in the transmigration of souls and I believe that a person lives only once. I want to know the fullness of life and understand a lot in it. Maybe my “much” will seem insignificant to someone, but this is mine. Did you bury secrets in the yard as a child? Glass, and under it - ribbons, candy wrappers, pieces of paper. It was only your secret, no one knew about it. It’s the same in life: you want to know everything and keep something else for yourself.

You are not seen at secular and acting parties ...

The places that we call "hangouts" and where I really get invited quite often are not the places where you can get even a little closer to the person you are interested in. This is a whirlwind where people do not look into each other's eyes. I was lucky that I realized this early and do not waste my life on these gatherings. I don't like to be in chaos.

Natalya Georgievna, why do actors today willingly go to entreprises? And you too...

Sometimes there is an opportunity to do what was not possible in the theater. But first of all, this is an opportunity to really earn money. The theater has never been the Klondike, but cinema has helped us all before. Now we are given there in such doses that it is ridiculous to talk about it. Previously, I was not afraid of age, because I knew: if I get older, I will switch to a different role and still be needed. Now I am by no means sure that I will, like Tatyana Ivanovna Peltzer, work until old age. At the same time, by a certain age, you already reach a certain habitual and stable position in this life: a three-room apartment, a Zhiguli car, a summer house one hundred and forty kilometers from Moscow. But you have to pay for the apartment, pour gasoline into the car, and the dacha requires a tax for the land. And if you refuse to earn money, you would have to sell it all.

I have never had a rich or sophisticated life, but before, if I wanted to buy something for myself, I did it without any problems. I'm used to stability, but since childhood I have had the fear of being someone's debtor. I really dislike borrowing money. If in a purse, or in a nightstand, or in a tureen (it’s who keeps it where), I don’t have extra money, not millions, but just for expenses, I get scared, I feel defenseless. Until I started working, my mother and I lived in debt. Of course, on payday, after half the debt was paid off, Mom would buy a cake or a chicken and we would have our own little feast. But I still have this fear.

If a bell rings for someone, it rings for you too. If tomorrow I have nothing to do in the theater, if the theater ceases to need me, I can at least go to the country, I will heat the stove with firewood and collect firewood in the forest so as not to go crazy. Although I am a purely urban person, I don’t like the land and I have no idea what to do with it, but if I don’t have the resources to live in the city, I will have to go there.

Do you delve into the political subtleties of our life?

A person cannot care what happens in his country. He depends on it. You can try to create a "microstate" for yourself, while achieving relative peace. But it is like a paradise for fools, a rather dangerous and fragile business, which at any moment can be swept away by a hurricane. Of course, I am deeply concerned about everything that happens, I do not agree with everything in a row, but I do not really envy those who occupy high positions.

You don't have kids of your own...

Probably, when I get old, I will be very sorry that there are no children. Or maybe not ... I don’t know what will happen to me next, but as long as I don’t feel the need to have children, I don’t feel their absence. The theater replaces them for me. I have always been so filled with the theater, I was so excited about everything that happened in it and around, that it was a pity to give part of my life somewhere else. From time to time, however, I imagine old age and do not see anything rosy in it. It's not good for two lonely old men to wander the streets. And maybe good? But I do not regret anything, because the theater has always been the main thing in my life.

Two months after the anniversary date, in November 1998, an interview with Gundareva was published in the women's magazine Women. Unfortunately, the publication does not indicate the name of the interviewer. But, without a doubt, this is an experienced, professional and tactful journalist. The questions asked outlined the range of issues that made this conversation meaningful and focused. The interlocutor clearly remembered the recent round date. And Natalya Georgievna, who repeatedly declared her dislike to remember the past, willingly spoke about both the past and the present; talked about roles, about personal, about politics, about life. And this interview was a kind of completion of those thoughts, those feelings and thoughts that, as it seems to us, visited Natalya Georgievna on those anniversary days and which, as we assumed, were captured in different years in her numerous interviews, fragments of which made up the content of the chapter. "Don't celebrate!"

Natalya Georgievna, you are a very popular actress. How did it all start? From a childhood dream?

God knows, I don't remember. I lived next to a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. These houses were inhabited famous people and our school had a strong parent committee. They took care of us: they took us to theaters, the conservatory, invited interesting people to school evenings. Then I decided to go to the Palace of Pioneers. I liked this pastime more than going to the dance floor. Maybe I ruined some complexes in myself, because my texture is not the most suitable for an actress. After all, the theater always needs a young beautiful heroine, and I am plump, loose, ashamed of myself. Imagine, with my height and complexion, I entered the basketball section of a sports school. Once a ski trip was organized at school, and I, who had never been on skis, went, in windy weather, went without a hat to prove that I was frost-resistant. Perhaps it was a kind of outliving something in itself. To prove that in such a flesh, which seemed imperfect to many, the spirit is important. When Goncharov found out that I was driving again after the accident, he said: “Natasha, are you again proving that you can do everything?” I prove it, but to myself. My mom says that the first word I said was "sama". With "sama" my life began; this is probably how it ends.

Severe accident?

I couldn't play for three months, I didn't even go on tour. But they really encouraged me at the Odessa film studio, inviting me to play a role in the film "The Feat of Odessa." I tell them: “But how will I play?” - and they answered me: “We have military time, we don’t care what is on your face,” which gave me hope.

The desire to play... What is it? Maybe an extension of the state of childhood?

I would not say that these feelings are similar to childhood. Childhood is associated with carelessness. And all the impressions that you bring to the stage, for me, are connected with torment. When you suffer, your soul gains a lot. You understand a lot. Not only bad, but also good - it becomes more significant, clearer, more distinct. Therefore, you can safely go on stage and play a brilliant comedy, because you know what happiness is. And you can understand any beggar, orphan, wretched, because he himself went through suffering. For me, acting is not a prank. I had funny roles, but I don't know how to make people laugh, I'm ashamed. I don't like the circus. It seems to me that from the inside all people are unhappy and lonely. I think that those who laugh a lot in public hide sadness deep down. They try to stuff it into a far corner so that others do not know that they are in pain. This is a form of protection. Shell.

Suffering, life experience go into the piggy bank of the actor. What about happiness?

In mine, no. When I am happy, I become so well-fed, I even get fat. I don't care. And I hate myself in the "don't care" state. I'm better off in hell. I'm used to them. This is how my life has turned out, and it cannot be changed. It seems to me that sometimes I perceive reality inadequately. It would be possible not to pay attention to something, but I pay attention: I must go through everything, survive everything. In many situations, I take an extremely negative option, I live it all, and then it turns out that everything is decided positively. And then I begin to think: what a fool I was, that I walked with a sick heart, drank valocordin ... But the next moment comes, and everything repeats all over again. Apparently, such an organism.

Now, looking from the top, what attracts you?

Oddly enough, life attracts not in its bright manifestations, upheavals, but in a calm, wise fluidity. I really want to stop this run, to see how it's raining, the foliage moves, the fog rises. After all, you live either in the past (which I never do, I don’t even remember the dates), or you always think about what needs to be done tomorrow. But you almost never live in reality. And I really want to feel it! However, it is difficult to break out of the rhythm that life has dictated, difficult and even, if you like, scary. It starts to feel like you're missing something. Although I think that there comes a moment when you realize that you have achieved something, and you can look around you. The world is so diverse, significant, there are many topics that are missing in our lives, but we are running towards our goals, peaks. And then from these peaks you see everything that is left at the foot, and it's so interesting! And you didn't see anything when you ran.

Are you not a secular person?

When I need to, I put on a “long” dress, make eyes instead of eyes and go. But I go like a lamb to the slaughter. Of course, it is pleasant, but to spend most life, when there are friends nearby whom you very rarely see, when you always need to read something, learn something, pack or unpack your suitcases...

What do you spend the second half of your life on?

I practically don't have it. I work all the time. Perennial habit. I haven't seen holidays before. Vacation - and I am filming in the film "Citizen Nikanorova is waiting for you." Now there are almost no films. I recently turned down two offers. I know that later I will regret mortally, but there came a moment when I realized that I needed to rest. The last two years have been full of work. And she didn’t work so much in the cinema: Roman Ershov had a small job in “Lakey Games”, Alla Surikova in the film “I Want to Go to Prison”, there were also “Petersburg Secrets”. I can’t say that there are powerful works in cinema.

What do you think you pay for success?

Probably children. I have always had a job. And she was constantly ahead of the next need to have a baby. I thought I would finish this work, and then ... I made everything dependent on work. And she always worked very hard. Loneliness in old age - I think I will pay with this.

Not scary?

Living in general is scary. In addition, there is such a quiet hope that God will not leave with His mercy; maybe all this will happen overnight, and you will not be a heavy burden on those who remain next to you. And you leave, pushing off with one foot from the ground.

Are there times when you don't want to play?

As soon as the third bell rings, you are no longer you. You take a step onto the stage, falling into a strip of light or darkness, and your life is transformed. You are no longer in control of yourself. The profession is strange, because it contains betrayal in itself: when you take off your clothes, leave your habits, you, in fact, betray yourself, become someone else, and not necessarily good at all.

Do the bad qualities of the characters played leave an imprint on you?

I think every person has everything mixed up. Normal people just try to get rid of bad qualities in themselves, while others put them on display, saying: “Yes, I am like that, but what should I do, since I have such a character?” You need to change your character, give up something, think not about yourself, but about someone else. As long as a person is ready to change, to learn something, he does not age. This year I flew for the first time on a parachute, on the beach from the pier. She flew over the sea. Feeling wonderful! I could be a pilot. I love airports, airplanes, I love watching them take off and land.

How do you see yourself?

I don't think I'm sugar. I have a resilient character.

What do the people around you say?

With us, in order to be treated well, you must at least ... die. Then everyone starts to suffer, to say how good you were. Everyone becomes your friend, but as long as you live... Oh!

Were you betrayed?

I cannot say that there were many such cases. From what I remember - once. I still don't talk to this person. Despite the fact that she came up to me on Forgiveness Sunday, I can’t step over myself. I hate betrayal more than anything in my life. Other weaknesses can still be forgiven. Betrayal means that you are left without rears, that you built your castle on quicksand. And you have nothing left in your life.

What do you regret?

It may seem arrogant, but I do not regret anything. I saw a lot, laughed a lot and suffered a lot... I felt the volume of life and do not refuse any of my breath. This is my life, and I am glad that it has passed so filling. Work, meetings with interesting people... Some passed, others were delayed.

And as the final chords of many years of reflection on your own creative work, above the roles, above life, the words of Natalia Gundareva from other interviews of the same time sound:

“I don’t like my past (not that I’m ashamed of it, I’m not interested in it), I’m interested in what lies ahead. I don't want to stop."

“I love this life very much, I love this life too much to divide it into love for work, love for family, love for friends, love for books, love for art. For me, this multidimensionality is life. And I can't refuse anything.

Of course, I'm passionate about work. This, I would say, is the meaning of my existence.

“There is another part of life that was unknown to me. I knew that she existed, that she was not only unknown, I did not need her. I was interested in theater in life, now I am interested in life in life.

"Second half" is not over yet, it is only gaining momentum. Many years will pass before its completion, during which Natalya Gundareva will have to play many roles. And for this she has the desire, strength and far from exhausted creative potential.

Her first teacher Yu. Katin-Yartsev noted: “A surprisingly many aspects of her talent were discovered and recognized in Gundareva's personality; but there are still unsolved, undiscovered, which have yet to be discovered.

E. Ryazanov said the same thing: “Gundareva has a polyphonic acting and spiritual reserve. Everything is subject to her... In a word, the well is deep. How much water is enough - life will show. But it's great that the bottom is not yet visible. That is why we are so looking forward to meeting her, we love her so much.”

The popularly beloved actress Natalya Gundareva once complained that life had passed her by. It was strange to hear this for both relatives and fans. Fate let go of her century, not long, but bright, full of both victories and bitter disappointments. She did not hide the fact that she paid many for her huge success. First of all - health. And childlessness. Although it was she who happened to become the largest mother of many children in the USSR - in the film "Once Upon a Twenty Years Later" ...

Text: Svetlana Safonova

I myself!

The first words of little Natasha were "I myself." And her tone was serious and demanding. Parents - engineers - laughed: they say, the boss will grow up! But the girl grew up with a dream of ballet. This desire appeared at the age of 5, when she was first taken to the Moscow Art Theater for the Blue Bird. The stage lights, the curtain, the stage, the actors - everything stunned Natasha. For several days afterwards she could not talk about anything except the performance. And when the girl saw Galina Ulanova on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater - in the ballet "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", she told her father: "I will be a ballerina!" He smiled in response: “You are a pampushka!” Natasha pursed her lips tightly in resentment. “I will still become an actress!” she whispered, more to herself than to her parents. It's like she took an oath. Since then, her thoughts were only about the theater.

Natasha was in fifth grade when her parents separated. Mom tried her best so that her daughter did not feel deprived of both love and material wealth. Worked for two. But it was difficult to live on a salary, and my mother often borrowed money. On pay day, she arranged a festive dinner - baked chicken in the oven, bought a Napoleon cake. Natasha, of course, was happy about this, but she saw how hard everything was given. And she began to earn money herself: she lifted loops on the stockings of her mother's friends for 50 kopecks. And soon she learned to sew skirts, sweaters and dresses for herself. Just don't borrow! In the 8th grade, Natasha enrolled in the Theater of Young Muscovites at the city House of Pioneers, within the walls of which Rolan Bykov, Lyudmila Kasatkina, Sergey Nikonenko studied in different years. Soon the school, and sewing, and the dance floor receded into the background. Everything free time now young Natasha devoted herself to a new occupation. Returning from rehearsals with their friend Vitya Pavlov, they could argue until they were hoarse about every mise-en-scene, about their mistakes and successes. Natalia carefully wrote down all the director's comments and recommendations in a notebook. And this habit remained with her for the rest of her life.

After graduating from school, Natalya announced to her mother that she had decided to enter the theater institute. But my mother said, "No." Mother's word was law for Natasha. And she submitted documents to the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute. Diligent and thorough, Gundareva successfully passed the first two exams...

"Non-dietary" figure

So later the playwright Viktor Merezhko will say, according to the script of which the film “Hello and Goodbye!” will be shot, about Natalia Gundareva, the performer of one of the main roles. And so she will defeat the selection committee in Pike, where she will still go to take exams. And "knocked out" - Vitka Pavlov! Natasha was already standing in front of the door to the auditorium of the construction institute - it was her turn to take the next exam. Suddenly, someone with all his might pulled her sleeve away from the door. She turned around, ready to slap the insolent fellow, and it turned out to be Pavlov! “What are you! She gone crazy? You need to come to us, to Pike! Natasha froze for a moment, and then silently turned around and went to pick up the documents. He thought that he would have to convince his girlfriend for a long time (he knew how stubborn she was!), And prepared a fiery speech about her dramatic talent. And it didn't have to. The next day, Gundareva was already standing at the entrance to the Pike. That year - 1967 - there was a huge competition at the school, 250 people per place. Thin, graceful, languid hand-written beauties made up the majority of applicants. It was difficult to compete with them. Accustomed from childhood to the epithets “bun”, “little box”, “dumpling”, she, of course, had a complex. Therefore, I tried to make my appearance memorable. Pink, with huge blue flowers dress, hot pink cheeks and lips, blue eyelids and curls! A big cheerful flower bed. On the way to the institute, Natasha got caught in the rain. The commission, headed by the master of the course, Yuri Katin-Yartsev, was shocked by the appearance of the applicant Gundereva. And then fascinated by her talent. She was accepted! "A freckled miracle" - this is how Gundareva was nicknamed by classmates: Yuri Bogatyrev, Konstantin Raikin, Natalya Varley. The newly minted student carefully wrote down all the lectures, selflessly worked at rehearsals. Wrapped in three layers of wool, she practiced for hours in a ballet class. In her second year, she was given the role of Donna Platonovna from Leskov's The Warrior. Gundareva played so brilliantly that the teachers of the school delivered a verdict: there was nothing more for her to learn, it was time to go on stage. From her student days, Natasha had a rule - to analyze every trait of the character of her heroines and write down observations in a notebook.

Natasha and I studied on the same course. But when they met on the set of Truffaldino from Bergamo, she was already famous throughout the USSR and could afford to say: “Well, I will work with what I have.” Meaning me.

Konstantin Raikin

Upon graduation, Natalya received an offer from five leading theaters of the capital at once. She chose the Theater. Vl. Mayakovsky, where she worked all her life. From the first role, she became the favorite actress of the imperious, despotic director Andrei Goncharov. The young actress, who had just graduated from the institute, was entrusted with the role of Lipochka in Bankrupt. This is her beloved Ostrovsky! The case helped. Natalia had previously been in the second squad. But she carefully attended rehearsals, taught the role and wrote down comments. When it suddenly turned out that the leading lady was ill, there was a chance to prove herself! Only 10 rehearsals took place before the premiere, and the director was amazed at how prepared the young actress was. Coming out to bow to the applause of the hall, Natalya thought: “Here it is, happiness! This is how it looks! I can probably do everything now?” The performance made a lot of noise both in theatrical Moscow and in Northern Palmyra. Full houses, full houses, full houses. But Gundareva did not relax - she rehearsed and worked, worked ... And it will always be like this: first work, theater, and then ... Well, if there is time for at least something. Whatever the performance, the event: “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, “I am standing at the restaurant”, “Running”. She considered herself primarily a theater actress. Actress Goncharova. “I blindly once accepted his faith on faith. I was only clay in the hands of the Master,” she recalled. Because of this, another "epoch-making" actress, Tatyana Doronina, who was considered Goncharov's favorite, left Mayakovka. Two primas are crowded on the same stage, and Doronina left the theater, slamming the door loudly.

Natasha was very free in her judgments, she was not afraid of anyone. It turned out to be more difficult to work with her than with Doronina. But she is talented and natural, like a cat.

George Natanson

She did not fit into the endlessly flourishing vulgarity. Natasha could be rude, she could send someone, but there was always a really good reason for that. She was sharp, furious, whatever, but she had never been vulgar in her life, because she did not belong to this dullness. Natasha was out of the ordinary both in life and on stage.

Igor Kostolevsky

And soon the whole country fell in love with the "Sweet Woman" Anya Dobrokhotova - a freckled village girl, eating jam with appetite. Never found, becoming an adult, her female happiness. And then Katya Nikanorova - the same citizen who expected love. Barmaid Dusya from "Hello and Goodbye", dreaming of happy marriage... Lonely Nina in the "Autumn Marathon". Naive and kind Aelita, vilely deceived by a "chic" swindler (Valentin Gaft) in the film "Aelita, don't pester men." All the characters seem to live next door. They are spectators who recognize themselves on the screen. This is probably why the actress became so loved. After all, there was not a single gram of falsehood in Gundareva's game. The viewer believed her unconditionally. There were also curiosities: after the release of Vitaly Melnikov’s village melodrama “Hello and Farewell”, Lenfilm received a letter saying that the management of the film studio was doing the right thing, involving not only actors, but also people from the people. As, for example, the performer of one of the roles, the village girl Natasha Gundareva. She also complained: “No matter how much I want to play Juliet, the director sees me as the Nurse, and I have nowhere to go.” And sometimes she added bitterly: “It is difficult to imagine a powerful tragic nature in a nesting doll” ...

Husbands real and fictional

Natalya Georgievna was officially married three times. The first passionate romance spun on the set of the film "Cliff" with director Leonid Kheifets. He was 14 years older than her, and she wanted to dissolve into the Master. They got married as soon as he was given a new apartment. They lived together, cheerfully, creatively. Actors came to the house almost daily, discussed performances, Natalya fed the guests very tasty. At first, the young wife welcomed friends with joy. Then, when more work appeared in the cinema, nightly gatherings began to interfere: she did not get enough sleep. And on one such evening, while preparing another culinary masterpiece, Natalya suddenly realized that she was tired of both these guests and this marriage. Love is over.

She lived alone for a long time. There was a short and vivid romance with the actor of the Mayakovsky Theater Viktor Koreshkov. The entire troupe of the native theater followed the development of their relationship with bated breath. They got married and ... divorced a year later. The reason is banal - treason. In order not to think about the sad, she worked almost seven days a week. To appear strong, independent. And the then public, deprived of the current "media gossip", regularly married the actress to each partner in the film. Once Alexander Mikhailov got a call at home to arrange a concert. His wife Vera answered the phone. Saying goodbye, the concert agent called her ... Natalya Georgievna (Gundareva and Mikhailov played in the film “The hostel is provided to the lonely.” - Auth.). Then Sergey Shakurov went “in husbands”. But here the actors did not hide their tender feelings for each other. They worked together a lot and were very good friends. They went on tour together, lived in the same hotels. She brought bouillon cubes for him, as he was very fond of soups, and he brought her fresh milk every morning.

And then Mikhail Filippov appeared in their theater. Talented actor. Behind her shoulders - a marriage with the daughter of Yuri Andropov Irina, domestic disorder, loneliness. At first they communicated friendly, intersecting in the same company. But interest in each other did not let go, soon it was already endless conversations about everything in the world. And then they just decided that they wanted to live together.

It was in the summer, on tour in Chelyabinsk and Perm. Love did not come, did not creep up, but hit us both. We met just in time, although sometimes I was sad: how late!

Mikhail Filippov

Finally, not a Genius appeared in the life of Natalia Georgievna, but simply a talented Man with whom one could feel calm, confident and comfortable. They created their own world into which very few were allowed. For example, when Natalya Georgievna was recovering from a car accident, Andrey Goncharov, one of the rare close people, visited. He later recalled that the sunny, cheerful, bright actress had such a dark atmosphere in the apartment. Brown curtains, dark wallpaper, twilight. He called her "the twilight woman". Goncharov then said: “How many years have I known you, Natasha, and you, it turns out, are a completely different person!”

Gundareva and Filippov wanted children, but for some reason it did not work out. Gossip, talk and idle speculation hurt the actress. She answered incorrect questions from journalists: “I don’t feel the need to have children. The theater replaces them for me.” And in the evening she told her husband - well, who are they, so that we open our soul and our life to them?

I look at the actors whom I have boundless respect for: Mikhail Ulyanov, Marina Neyolova, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Alisa Freindlich ... And I don’t notice that they make their lives public. They are democratic, but do not allow familiarity. And someone - on the contrary. But it seems to me that excessive frankness comes from the desire to keep popularity when there is nothing to keep it. When a person is not self-sufficient, uninteresting to himself, and there is nothing to imagine along the creative line, endless scandalous publications begin.

Roles, meanwhile, became less and less real, to which she was accustomed. Like any woman, actress, she wanted to play heroines, not "age". It seemed to Natalya Georgievna that her time was running out. She decided on plastic surgery. She lost a lot of weight and got younger. She looked great when, after a long break, she appeared in public. True, it was difficult to recognize her. The new face-mask of the audience was stunned. But Gundareva was pleased - she never had such a thin waist. She was ready to compete with the young!

As soon as the third bell rings, you are no longer you. You take a step onto the stage and your life is transformed. You are no longer in control of yourself. The profession is strange, because it contains betrayal in itself: when you take off your clothes, leave your habits, you, in fact, betray yourself, become someone else, and not necessarily good at all.

When Natalya Georgievna fell ill - hypertensive crisis, stroke, coma - Mikhail Filippov did not move a single step. He talked to her all the time, read poetry, told news, composed fairy tales. Just him and her. None of the strangers, even friends, were allowed to see the actress. Mass media exploded with articles that if the actress had not lost weight with a scalpel, she would not have been in such a deplorable state! Every day new and new editorials came out: Gundareva has weak blood vessels, and in this case, any surgical intervention and anesthesia are deadly. While Natalya Georgievna was in a coma, while she was recovering for a long and hard time, the country's journalists seemed to have gone crazy. "Sensations" appeared on the front pages: an interview with a housekeeper talking about the Thai pills that the actress was taking. That with a psychic who claimed that the disease is the revenge of her first lover. Then with the cosmetologists who talked about the "bodily infirmities" of the no longer young Gundareva. With "friends" who saw how Natalya Georgievna communicated with psychics and fortune tellers. With doctors and nurses, with theater administrators, with everyone who had even the slightest relation to Gundareva. Mikhail Filippov said bitterly that journalists wrote an endless Mexican series about his wife. “They took pictures of sick Natasha at the Burdenko Institute, and I thought: did they ever have mothers?”

Filippov's efforts, his patience and love were rewarded - Natalya Georgievna began to recover. And dreamed of returning to the stage. But again, misfortune: during a walk, the actress slipped, fell, hit the back of her head. And again hospitals, despair, hopes... For five years she struggled with illness. She really wanted to live, because she believed that now it was already possible to stop and look around. To see how it is raining, the foliage is moving, the fog is rising... In one of the rare interviews, the actress said: “It is difficult to break out of the rhythm that life has dictated, it is difficult and even, if you like, scary. It starts to feel like you're missing something. Although I think that there comes a moment when you realize that you have achieved something and you can look around you. The world is so diverse, significant, but we are running towards our goals, peaks. And then from these peaks you see everything that is left at the foot, and it's so interesting! And you didn't see anything while you were running."

To be treated well, you must at least die. Then everyone starts to suffer, to say how good you were. Everyone becomes your friend. While you live...

Natalya Georgievna Gundareva died at less than 57 years old. She once accompanied last way Ivan Kozlovsky, heard Sviridov's "Blizzard" at his funeral and asked her friends to bury her to the same music. Her wish was granted. “The soul is cheerful, it’s true, but all the impressions that I bring to the stage are for me connected with torment. Life is still a tragedy, because the ending is tragic: we die. It seems to me that from the inside all people are unhappy and lonely, ”she said in one of her rare interviews ...

Life is always something more. And she continues. Even after death. As long as we are remembered, we are alive.

People's Artist of Russia (1986)
The best actress according to the polls of the Soviet Screen magazine (1977, 1981, 1984, 1990)
Award Winner Lenin Komsomol (1978)
Laureate of the Vasiliev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR (1980, for participation in the film "Autumn Marathon")
Prize at the IX International Film Festival in Bulgaria (1981)
Prize of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia "Nika" (1990)
Prize "Diamond Crown" All-Russian festival"Constellation" (1990)
Prize at the Montreal International Film Festival for Best Actress (1990)
Prize "Golden Eagle" for the best female role in the film "Rostov-Papa" (2002)
Awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV degree (1998)
Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1984, for theatrical work)
Laureate of the Moscow Prize (1994, for participation in the play "The Victim of the Century")
Laureate of the "Crystal Turandot" award (1996)
Laureate of the award of Russian business circles "Kumir" (1999, for acting in the play "Love Potion")
Laureate of the IFF "East-West" in Baku for the best female image (2000)
Laureate of the Stanislavsky Prize for contribution to theatrical art (2001)
Laureate of the Prize of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art (2002)

Her father, Georgy Makarovich, worked as a laborer near Tula as a child, came to Moscow at the age of 14, and went from a worker to an engineer. The mother of Natalia Gundareva, Elena Mikhailovna Gundareva, graduated from a construction institute and worked in a design bureau as a design engineer. In her free time, she played in the amateur theater of her research institute, and her love for the theater was passed on to her daughter. Natasha went to the art circle at the House of Pioneers, and being a fairly large girl, she played age roles in most performances. For example, in "Wild Dog Dingo" she played the role of the mother of the main character.

AT early years Natasha was not at all ashamed of her fullness, although she looked older than her years because of this. Broad-boned and tall, she dressed very modestly, despite her fullness, attended the basketball section, ballroom dancing, ran skiing and went without a hat in windy weather.

After leaving school, Natalya Gundareva was going to follow in her mother's footsteps - to become a design engineer. This decision was explained by poverty, and after the 10th grade, Gundareva moved to an evening school (then the education was 11 years old), and got a job as a draftsman in a design bureau, since the construction institute where she was going to enter required work experience. After two years of work in the bureau, Natalya Gundareva became an assistant to the chief engineer of the project, and at the family council it was decided that Natasha would enter the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute. In 1967, she began to take the entrance exams at MISI and successfully passed two rounds, but chance intervened in her fate. “I seriously decided to become a builder,” Gundareva later recalled, “with pleasure I was engaged in the reconstruction of reinforced concrete ceramic plants. I passed two exams at the institute, when a friend suddenly ran in: “Natasha, is it true that you are entering MISI ?! She gone crazy! Immediately bring the documents to us, to Shchukinskoye! For some reason I obeyed."

Natalia's mother went on vacation at that time, and Viktor Pavlov, who worked at the Yermolova Theater, turned out to be Natalia Gundareva's "friend". It was he who persuaded Gundareva to put her dreams of engineering and construction out of her head and become an actress.

In the Shchukin school, where Gundareva soon came to take exams, there was a competition of 247 people for a place, but this did not frighten Gundareva. After listening to Gundareva, the opinions of the examiners were divided: some noted the fullness of the student, others noted that she was quite plastic. Everything was decided by the voice of the chairman of the commission, who noticed that, despite the shortcomings, the applicant Gundareva is a very charming girl, and Natalya was enrolled in a course with a wonderful actor and teacher Yuri Katin-Yartsev. Gundareva's classmates were Yuri Bogatyrev, Konstantin Raikin and Natalya Varley. Entering the theater school, Gundareva was actively involved in stage movement and choreography, contrary to the opinion of teachers who said that fullness would limit her acting opportunities.

Natalia's mother was extremely upset strange decision daughter, believing that she would certainly beg in the theater. For comparison, in the design bureau Natalya was paid 120 rubles a month, while the scholarship at the theater school was only 38 rubles. The young student had to earn extra money. “In general, I started earning money early with my work,” Natalya Georgievna later said. - We did not live in poverty, but modestly, and when mom and dad separated, it became even more difficult to live. I lifted the loops on stockings (at that time they were expensive) to my mother's friends. I was paid 50 kopecks or even a ruble for this. She sewed skirts and dresses for herself.

As a sophomore, Gundareva played the age-old role of Domna Platonovna in Leskov's "Warrior Girl" so vividly at the exam that the then rector Boris Zakhava, who played the role of Kutuzov in the epic film "War and Peace" directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, said admiringly: "Gundareva has nothing to study - it's time to go on stage. I’m ready to give her a diploma right now!”

“It was a high school. Freemen in good sense words, ”the actress later recalled as well. observant, tenacious visual memory and purposeful fantasy from the first student tests became an important professional quality of Gundareva. And one more of her properties manifested itself at the same time - a sober, critical attitude towards herself and the desire to overcome her own weaknesses and shortcomings.

After graduating from college in 1971, several Moscow theaters applied for Natalya Gundareva at once, and Gundareva opted for the Mayakovsky Theater. For the first three years, she played introductions to the performances of the current repertoire, and the first significant work of the actress in the theater was the role of Lipochka in the play "Bankrupt" based on Ostrovsky's play in 1974. Then, in the play "Running", Gundareva played the "camping wife of General Charnota" Lyuska, finding new colors for her heroine, which made Lyuska one of the main characters of the play. The role of Katerina Izmailova, played by Gundareva in the play Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, staged in 1979, also remained in the memory of the audience.

The first husband of Natalia Gundareva was Leonid Kheifets. Their marriage lasted six years, in addition, Kheifetz filmed Natalia in the television film The Break, which brought her first fame. In 1973, Natalya Gundareva was offered to play in the film "Autumn", but she was three months pregnant. In order not to refuse the main role, Gundareva had an abortion, and could no longer have children.

The performance "Profitable Place" was the last joint work Natalia Gundareva and Leonid Kheifets. For six years, their life together has changed dramatically. Before his marriage, Leonid Efimovich lived at the Theater of the Soviet Army right behind the scenes, but when he began to develop a serious relationship with Gundareva, he began to fuss about normal housing. When a house was built specifically for the actors on Tverskaya Street, the couple got an apartment in it. This was especially convenient for Heifets - he was then mainly engaged in staging performances at the Maly Theater, and it was convenient for him to get to his place of work on foot. But, on the other hand, due to the fact that the theater was not far from the director's house, he often brought the entire troupe to his home after the performance. The actors liked this behavior, but for the director's wife, these frequent gatherings were a burden. Initially, Gundareva greeted guests with joy, but later hospitality became difficult for her. After the film "Sweet Woman" she was bombarded with offers to play new roles, and she was very tired, acting in 5-6 films at the same time. Therefore, when she heard the sound of the unlocked door and the voice of Heifetz from the threshold: “Natasha, set the table!” - she had to sacrifice for the sake of the guests a rare time of her rest. Gundareva said to one of her friends: “And here I am standing in the kitchen and peeling potatoes. I'm so tired of the master's worries. I can't anymore! That's it, my love is over!"

Gundareva practically had no one to even consult with or to shift the range of household chores to someone. Natasha's mother could not help her daughter, since she herself got married a second time. And Gundareva had to choose - either work or family. The work won, and Gundareva decided to divorce. “As children, I probably pay for success,” Gundareva said. - I've always had a job. And she was constantly ahead of the next need to have a baby. I thought I would finish this work, and then ... I will pay with loneliness in old age. Am I scared? It's scary to live like that. In addition, there is a quiet hope that God will not leave with His mercy and all this will happen overnight. And you will not hang like a burden on those who stay by your side. And you will leave, pushing off with one foot from the ground.

Natalya Gundareva re-married the actor of the Mayakovsky Theater Viktor Koreshkov, and the third husband of Natalya Gundareva was the actor Mikhail Filippov.

The actress said about Filippov: “Misha came to the theater and made friends with my former classmate at the theater school. Thus, we ended up in the same company. They were friends, arranged jokes, jokes. By the way, my husband is a man of amazing humor. He knows a lot about a good joke. God did not give me such wit, and I was basically just a performer. But I liked being a part of it all. Then in the theater we worked together so well that we realized: we need to live together. The only reason why we have misunderstandings is the dissimilarity of the rhythms of life. However, now I have become calmer. Before, I used to hurry: “Well, come on, hurry up ...” In response, I hear: “Natasha, we still have 15 minutes.” All. The incident is over. My husband has a son from his first marriage, we have no common children. When a husband is an artist, this removes many problems. There is no need to explain why you are nervous before the premiere or rehearse late into the night. My husband is not a critic to me, but a friend ... He knows that if something is wrong, I will exhaust myself. He does not interfere in my affairs, and I - in his. Yes, I understand that no one knows him the way I know Misha. It is a shame that the directors with whom he worked could not always see, feel and realize his potential. Well, let's just hope it happens another time. I married him not because he is talented, but because he is.

In 1972, Natalya Gundareva played the main role in Vitaly Melnikov's melodrama Hello and Goodbye!. The actress portrayed her character so truthfully that a letter came to Lenfilm saying that the management of the film studio was doing the right thing, involving not only actors, but also people from the people, including the village girl Natasha Gundareva.

When we decided to get acquainted with Gundareva, - the author of the script Viktor Merezhko later recalled, - she amazed us. It was not at all what we are used to in our novice performers. Neither infantilism, nor deliberate fatigue, nor any general certainty - for some reason it is believed that there is a mystery and perspective in this. Gundareva attracted to her cheerful optimism, quite determined and very provocative femininity, undisguised pressure of fresh, unused creative forces. She somehow immediately discouraged you with her naturalness, unadorned and “unpainted”, which was also not very common in a young actress. After all, today (by the way, maybe after Gundareva?) the fashion for external artlessness and natural beauty. And in the early 70s, as we remember, “painted” divas in trousers walked along the streets and the screen, and among them Gundareva with unpowdered freckles and not at all a “dietary” figure seemed a miracle. And we said to her: "Hello!"

The actress herself, speaking about the role of the barmaid Nadenka, was categorical: “When I looked at myself in this role, I was horrified: the screen had not yet been invented to accommodate my back.” Later, Gundareva played the role of Dusi in Andrei Smirnov's melodrama "Autumn", Tasi in Nikolai Gubenko's drama "Wounded Wounds" and Anya Dobrokhotova in Vladimir Fetin's melodrama "Sweet Woman". The last role required considerable experience from the actress - Gundareva played three different women in it, three different destinies through which her heroine comes to herself. The film caused a wide resonance in society and a stream of responses in which the role of the actress who created such a vitally authentic and ambiguous image was highly appreciated. It is no coincidence that in 1977, in a survey of the Soviet Screen magazine, Natalia Gundareva was first recognized as the best actress of the year.

In the late 1970s, Natalya Gundareva played several more prominent roles. In Valentin Maryagin's melodrama "Citizen Nikanorova is waiting for you" Gundareva appeared before the audience in the image of a violent, addicted, but at the same time kind and sensitive Katya Nikanorova. In 1979 Gundareva played Nina in George Danelia's tragicomedy Autumn Marathon, and for this role the actress was awarded the Vasilyev Brothers Prize.

In 1980, eight films with the participation of Gundareva appeared on the screens of the USSR. In one of the films called White snow Russia” told about the brilliant chess player, world champion Alexander Alekhin. Alexander Mikhailov starred in the title role in this film, and Natalia Gundareva played Alekhin's wife, Nadezhda, who was very upset by separation from her homeland in exile.

To say that I liked working with her, - Alexander Mikhailov recalled about filming with Natalya Gundareva, - it means to say nothing. She is a very interesting and talented person.

The film "White Snow of Russia" was the "starter" in the collaboration between Gundareva and Mikhailov. Then they played together in the film "Lonely people are provided with a hostel" and in one of the series of the series "Connoisseurs are investigating." Popular rumor immediately "married" Gundareva and Mikhailov. And no one paid attention to the fact that in the same "Olympic" year, a film adaptation of Moliere's "Imaginary Sick" was released, where Gundareva starred with her real then-husband. True, she had the main female role, and he had an episodic one.

Then Natalya Gundareva starred in the film directed by Yuri Yegorov "Once Twenty Years Later", in which the story was about the fate of a woman raising ten children. The birth rate was falling in the country, and the appearance of this picture was caused by a state order. Yegorov decided to visit the real large families and see how they really live. After watching, the director was shocked by what he saw: in most families, the parents were alcoholics, and their children crawled on the floor and played with bottles. Despite the realities seen, a beautiful movie fairy tale appeared on the screens, the success of which was largely dictated by the choice of performers: Natalya Gundareva, who played the mother of many children absolutely harmoniously, and Viktor Proskurin as the father of the family.

In the mid-1980s, Natalia Gundareva got into a car accident and couldn't play for three months. At this time, an invitation from the Odessa Film Studio for a role in the film "The Feat of Odessa." Natalya Gundareva recalled: “I tell them: “But how will I play?” - and they answered me: “We have a military time, we don’t care what is on your face, which gave me hope.”

After recovering from the injury, Gundareva got behind the wheel again. Director Andrei Goncharov, having learned that she was again driving a car on her own, asked: “Natasha, are you again proving that you can do anything?” The actress herself compared her life with the Olympics, when each participant strives to follow her law: “Faster! Above! Stronger!"

The actress again delighted her fans with new works. In the tragicomedy "Aelita, do not pester men," she played an ingenuous woman, ready to directly say even to the famous film actor Belmondo: "I like you!" This was followed by roles in the detective story "Two Arrows", the comedy "Crazy", the tragicomedy "Promised Heaven". And in the television film "Vivat, midshipmen!" she played the Empress Elizabeth.

When in 1999 she went on stage to receive the "Idol" award, she said: "The longer you live, the more people appear who have something to thank for" - and, at the same time, thanked her "enemies who made her be better." Being a maximalist, Natalya Gundareva strictly evaluated herself and others. They said about Gundareva that she could make a remark to her partner twice, and on the third time she would demand to remove him from the role. Georgy Natanson, director of the film “Aelita, don’t pester men,” recalled: “Natasha was very free in her judgments, she was not afraid of anyone. It turned out to be more difficult to work with her than with Doronina. But she is talented and natural, like a cat.”

During her last theatrical season, Natalya Gundareva worked in her usual intense rhythm. She thought that the stresses she regularly subjected her health to were already the norm, but in such a state, as a rule, it is difficult to stop and take a breath. In the 2000/2001 season, Natalya Gundareva played roles in three performances - Glafira Firsovna in Victim of the Century, Ogneva in Theatrical Romance and Lettice Duffay from Love Potion. She was faithful to her director and the theater, comparing her attitude to the theater with her attitude to family and marriage: "Once and for life." Natalya Georgievna even usually spent holidays in the theater. And in one interview, when asked by a journalist about how she starts her day, Gundareva ironically answered: “A hand reaches for my head and pulls me out of bed by the hair.”

AT last years Natalya Gundareva often starred in television series, embodying the image of a middle-aged business woman on the screen. Slender, beautiful, fit, she moved away from the role of a rude simpleton. One of her last roles, Marina's psychologist in the TV series Love.ru, should be attributed to such projects. Director Vladimir Vladimirovich Basov said: “She, of course, was the highest professional and incredible endurance. Judge for yourself, out of 48 shooting days - July - August - she is busy in 40. Her work went on every day, and then we shot almost 18 hours a day. We filmed the series in a progressive way - in huge chunks. Natasha had long scenes when she had to say a lot of text at once. Three cameras were installed, and she worked on each of them. It was difficult, even mistakes in the text were fraught with big reshoots. But that's what Gundareva's high responsibility means! There was never a time when she spoke her text with errors or even stumbled. Well done! We then shot all the scenes with her just from the first take. The most talented actress!

There were legends about Gundareva's responsibility during her work. Because of this, many associates claimed she was easy to communicate with. Natalya Georgievna always came to the theater an hour and a half before the start of the performance, prepared for it very seriously, went down to the stage before the other actors and, standing backstage, listened to the noise of the hall, trying to guess its current mood. But one day, with her, so obligatory and fanatical in her work, an absurd incident happened: she ... forgot to come to her own performance. On this day, she saw off her friends abroad and just got distracted from the constant rhythm. The next day, the director of the theater called her, and the unsuspecting Gundareva, thinking that they wanted to congratulate her on conferring the title of "people's" artist, came to him in a good mood. When Gundareva sat down in front of the authorities, cross-legged, and prepared to listen to what they would say to her, the following dialogue took place: “Well, Natasha, what are we going to do?” - “Well, I don’t know, we’ll probably be scared to walk.” - “Natasha, do you understand what happened?” - "What happened?" - “Natasha, you didn’t come to the performance yesterday, you know?” When the meaning of the conversation reached Gundareva, she became ill and lost consciousness. And all this despite the fact that, on a serious occasion, Gundareva could express herself quite strongly, and did not suffer from excessive sentimentality.

The first stroke happened to the actress in the country on July 19, 2001. She was cutting vegetables for dinner and, as she later recalled, her eyes suddenly went dark, as if she had failed somewhere. Lying on the floor, her husband Mikhail Filippov discovered her, who immediately called “ ambulance". For ten days, the actress lay in a coma - a critical period, usually people do not fully recover after this, but the doctors did everything possible, and Natalya Gundareva began to recover. Soon she began to ask the doctors when she would be allowed to return to her favorite theater, and her colleagues were looking forward to Gundareva's recovery. The management of the Mayakovsky Theater started talking about making a performance with her voiceover, and the artistic director of the theater, Artsibashev, offered Gundareva the position of his assistant.

On August 28, 2002, a year after the stroke, the doctors allowed Gundareva to celebrate her birthday. They were all the time very cautious in their predictions, but Gundareva gradually restored her speech, visited the gym every day, began to walk a little and even planned to write a book of memoirs. Fearing to worry Natalya Georgievna, information about the death of Elena Mikhailovna's mother, who died a few weeks after her daughter's hospitalization, was hidden from her for a year.

“All four years Natasha was cared for by the nurse Ira, who became a member of the family. She became attached to Natasha, was always ready to please her with something, Gundareva's friends said. - Natasha loved to talk to her, affectionately called Plyushka. They made fun of each other and laughed. And it seemed that the bad things were forgotten for a while ... Due to illness, Natalya Georgievna's character deteriorated a little. Sometimes she was offended by the nurse, if she left her alone in the room for five minutes, by her husband, who was leaving for the shooting, but every hour he called his beloved wife on his mobile. He turned down many roles in order to be with his wife. Sometimes Natasha, due to her illness, could be capricious. Suddenly she wants to urgently bring her best expensive fur coat and take it out for a walk. What to do - she's a woman! They brought a fur coat, tried to anticipate any desires, worrying about a dear person.

The actress lacked communication. All her life she was used to being the center of attention, and suddenly she was cut off from the world. She did not like to stay at home for a long time, and insisted that she be taken to the hospital. As she herself said, to her "party", in which she made friends with doctors and nurses. “Natalya Gundareva always remembered that she was a woman, she loved to flirt, and her personal doctor Timur Mansurovich paid compliments to her, called her her beloved patient. She felt comfortable here, the nurses said. - Sometimes Natalya Georgievna seemed to lose her clarity of mind, she forgot where she was, asked strange questions, she fancied something ... But when consciousness returned, she read a lot (she was especially carried away by the Bible, which became her reference book), she was cheerful , easily solved crossword puzzles.

In the fall of 2004, Natalya Georgievna became drastically worse. And shortly before her death, Gundareva went to a Tibetan monk, from whom she asked for spiritual help.

I hate myself in the "don't care" state. I'm better off in hell. I'm used to them. This is how my life has developed, and this cannot be changed, - the actress admitted.

The last few months, the illness of the actress proceeded without complications. Doctors were worried about cardiac arrhythmia - a consequence of a sedentary life on medication. Gundareva was sometimes sharp and irritable. “But a week ago, Natasha suddenly affectionately hugged the nurse Ira and said a lot of kind words, confessed her love, thanked her for her patience. Ira was moved to tears, - said a friend of the actress. “And Natalya Georgievna suddenly warmly asked her husband for forgiveness that because of her illness he had suffered so much, as if ... she had a premonition of trouble.”

On May 7, Natasha's relatives took her to the dacha for the holidays. This was usually done when she felt well. And the doctors allowed the patient to change the situation for a few days. Then Gundareva returned to the hospital again. She told the nurses that she dreamed that she was flying in her sleep. “The incident hit us suddenly, no one expected anything bad! The day before, Natasha was visited by her husband, they stayed together, then said goodbye, everything was fine! - recalled a friend of Natasha's nanny. - I know, Natasha said that she was afraid to die at home: they say, I will feel bad, and you will not be able to provide help at the right time. She has endured so much pain and fear. I was afraid to die in agony."

Death came suddenly: according to some data, a blood clot broke off, blocking the pulmonary artery, according to others, another stroke became the cause of death.

Natalya Gundareva died on May 15, 2005. When she was buried, the memorial service at the Mayakovsky Theater had to be extended for an hour and a half. Thousands of people lined up along Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street up to the Manezh, certainly wanted to say goodbye to their favorite actress. According to the old acting tradition, she was carried out with applause on her last journey.

Natalia Gundareva was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow.

About Natalya Gundareva was filmed documentary Our Natasha. Sergei Shakurov, Emmanuil Vitorgan, Leonid Kheifets, Alexander Mikhailov, Karen Shakhnazarov, Viktor Merezhko and Tatiana Dogileva spoke about Natalia Gundareva

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The text was prepared by Andrey Goncharov.

INTERVIEW WITH NATALIA GUNDAREVA

How do you, such a pleasant woman in all respects, make ill-wishers?

I think it's because I reserve the right to tell the truth. I either don't say anything at all, but if they ask me, I don't consider it possible to dissemble somehow. Well, who likes the truth ... There is such a wonderful anecdote about this, when one actor asks another: “You know, I only trust you, well, tell me, how did I play the premiere?” - “Are you honest?” - “Honestly, because only you will tell me the truth!” - “To be honest, it sucks…” - “No, I'm serious…” Maybe I will seem very arrogant, but there are no talented people who would not have ill-wishers.

- How do you react to them?

I believe that the only way I have to deal with all the negativity around me is to do my job well. I don't know any other way to get revenge. If I manage to play a decent role, I believe that this is my revenge. I will not pour salt under the threshold.

- The feeling of envy is not inherent in you at all?

It is inherent, but it is different. For example, I see a woman who is well, stylishly dressed, smartly combed. Then I see her a second time and understand that this is her way of being. She is like this. Or I watch some actress in a role and suffer: well, why shouldn’t I have this role, how I would like to play it ... And why do I think so? Because she plays well too. I, perhaps, would not have seen this role if I had just read it. And I saw it because she did a great job. And then I yearn, envy that I do not have such a role or similar to it.

- What role do you dream of?

I never dreamed about roles. Of course, I choose when I am offered 10 scenarios. But the director sees me in this role, and in no other. And then, no matter how much I want to play Juliet, he sees me as the Nurse, and I have nowhere to go. You see, I always tried not to think, I tried not to dream. I thought that the coming day would bring me something, that God would not leave me, the viewer would not forget me, and somehow my crooked path would nevertheless take me onto a bright path.

- Is the acting world aggressive?

No matter how hard you try to show everyone what a self-sufficient person you are, in demand, if you sit at home or do some trifling things, if you run around some small things, parties, these dens ...

- What do you call nativity scenes?

This pastime I call a nativity scene. Empty, it brings nothing to the soul or mind. Yes, and the body just physically wears out. Such a crazy pseudo-active existence harms, it seems to me, the actors. Here is a flicker, moreover, meaningless, useless, giving nothing to anyone, not bringing anything ... When people forget about their profession - this is where, in my opinion, the most tragic moments of an actor's existence begin.

- Do you like to philosophize?

I have lived my life and I reserve the right to think. I have a time when I walk from my house on Tverskaya to the theater. 35 minutes I walk to the theater. This is what I call my time. At this time, I answer my own questions. I ask myself questions of various kinds. Who will be the president. How prices will rise. About working on the role. I try to answer all these questions for myself. When I answer them, then, in principle, a meeting with a journalist is then no longer difficult. It's like I've thought of everything. This is not philosophy. With the power of thought, when there are so many dens around me, I force myself not to go there, not to squander myself. I'm sort of saving myself for something. Maybe I will remain an unfilled vessel - well, that means that such is my fate. But I still aspire to a full life. I understand that my life is running out. Well, as if she lived more than half her life. And I don’t want to do it like this, from the shoulder: ah, now I’m going to go all out - they invite you to this bar, here are gifts, they will give you a fountain pen, here is chewing gum ... Well, I can’t afford it. Because I love myself very much, and I love myself so directly, right from morning to night. And because of this, I don’t allow myself so much!

- Invent your own world?

I don't confuse life with theater. Life is one thing, and I believe that life is beautiful because it is life. And the theater is beautiful because it is a theater. It seems to me that it is a very great misfortune for some actors when they confuse these two concepts. They can’t play anything on the stage, but in life you just can’t stop looking at it. But you get tired of these very quickly.

- You do not like merry fellows?

Time has scattered people so much, shaken them so much... Everything is like fragile boats on these waves of the worldly sea... So I turn on some kind of program, I look. And now everyone is joking, joking, everything is sad, but everyone is joking. Is it all so funny to you? When a person goes on stage and starts telling jokes - a professional pop performer! Yes, he is a joker, well, not to the extent that he tells jokes about the back seat. Well, probably, we need to prepare some kind of program. People laugh, but how can I tell you ... I believe that we rise during life, our task is to rise, and not fall. Otherwise, why go somewhere? I do not understand this: why is there such a wild stupidity of people sitting in front of the TV? We used to listen to what accent the announcer would put, and we learned from them. Well then, let's all say: “doors”, “linoleum”, let's burn Dahl's dictionary on Red Square, let's!

- Can you lie?

No, it's hard to lie, your eyes start to run. 28 years in the theater, it would seem, like an artist, but as a lie - I feel, the pupil is trembling and my eyes are running around. Well, of course, I won’t say to a cancer patient that he is hopeless, and if my friend comes after a sleepless night and says: oh, I look so bad today - and she needs to perform ... I say: what are you, okay, I even I was surprised, you said you didn’t sleep until three, but you look very decent! But I understand that she needs support now ... In general, I can’t lie.

- Well, didn’t you lie as a child?

Mom caught it once. I went, as it was called, on an extended day. On Saturday we were taken to the cinema, and at home they gave me 50 kopecks. I collected them, went to GUM and ate ice cream, with a pea, very tasty. And one day my mom caught me on this. We got off the bus together, although I, in theory, was supposed to go on the other side. "Where have you been?" To my misfortune, my mother was also at this film, which, it seems, I was at. There was such a scandal at home! Until I screamed like crazy. (She never beat me, once she hit my ass with her palm - I sobbed for three hours - it was such an insult and humiliation of my human dignity! It was scary, I didn’t want to live.) And then I squealed: what, you can’t even eat ice cream ?! My pain spoke to me. (Laughs.)

- Were you spoiled as a child?

They never particularly fussed with me, they didn’t call Natasha. Natasha and all.

- In honor of whom were you named Natasha?

I left the hospital with this name already. Like any newborn, I had such a huge head. But they say that my mouth was even bigger than my head, and I yelled accordingly. And when they rolled in a stroller with children for feeding, my mother says that the nanny in the maternity hospital just threw me to her with the words: take your Natasha! When my mother left the maternity hospital with me, I already responded to this name, and my father said: well, let it be Natasha.

- Why do you look so good?

And there's nothing left for me to do.

- You are in great shape, did you manage to lose weight?

And I eat myself, from morning to night, so I lost weight.

- Seriously, diet?

Well, she made some efforts, but such, not cruel ones. I didn’t take pills, I think it’s harmful (then the so-called Thai pills were in vogue. - EN). And so something "diet". I lost weight for a long time - more than a year.

- Do not eat buns, sweet no-no?

Well, what are you, I really love puff buns with cherries. When one of the girlfriends comes, they say: well, how is it, you seem to be losing weight? what about buns? I answer: stupid, what is not clear - this is my vitamin: B1, B2 ...

- How do others react to your updated appearance?

Detractors' jaws drop when they see me. And my friends are very happy.

- Do you travel a lot, have a rest?

Well, my husband and I are going somewhere, but I cannot say that I am a traveler. I once sailed on a ship. I thought that I would go crazy in this closed space, where the same people. I am a very sociable person, but I need a place where I can be alone. In general, I believe that whomever God wants to curse, he rewards with loneliness. But I love solitude, I need places where I could retire.

Have you ever thought about leaving the theatre?

There were when they were rehearsing the play “Running”, there was a conflict. I played Lucy. The runs have already started, but Andrey Alexandrovich Goncharov made very few comments to me. And now such a decisive run-through, a dress rehearsal, and after that he suddenly tells me - he makes comments, comments to everyone, and then he says to me: I don’t have anything to say to you at all, you rehearsed monstrously today, you have some kind of home directing. I say: what home direction ... while I'm in this church - I pray to this god. He does not listen - we are with him in two voices. He suddenly began to say: don’t scare me that you will leave me (this is after the words “while I am in this church”). And he started yelling at me, and I got up and left. I went to change, came home and I think: I’ll leave the theater, since he talks to me like that ... Well, how is it - for 20 days of the run he didn’t make a single comment (I would review it), and suddenly at the dress rehearsal I do everything wrong? ! There are failures, but not to the same extent. I thought, thought: no, I decided, I will still find the strength in myself and tomorrow I will come to the rehearsal, and if he says at least one word to me, I will turn around, leave and write a statement. I came, got dressed, we all went on stage. He came up and said: now let's start with the scenes, there, “Lyuska - the sixth dream”, looks at me and says: rehearse, please. And he didn't tell me anything else. We didn’t apologize, didn’t suck up, just said: rehearse, and I began to rehearse ... And so I never had to leave. Because I am still from the servicemen - I am impassive, I am patriotic, I love my Motherland, I love my theater. Well, indeed, Goncharov managed to create an amazing aura in the theater. When Goncharov was in the theater, I actually felt good.

- Does life force you to do something? Are you forced to somehow keep yourself, submit, control?

Oh sure. You see, climbing to the top is easier than descending from it. But staying there is even harder. Because in principle, if you want to go down, you can move out of there and at the fifth point. The hardest thing in life is holding on.

- What would you like to wish yourself and the audience?

Every morning, when I get up, I wish myself one thing - to survive. Because we are born into this world, and God gives us all the possibilities, and as long as we are not pulled apart from the outside, we keep this God's breath. I would like every person to keep this in himself. I would like to wish patience, love. I would like to thank the audience, because I understand - as long as there is at least one person who sits in the auditorium and watches what I do, my profession becomes immortal ...

Filmography:

1966 Khmyr
1970 Passing through Moscow
1972 Hello and goodbye
1973 Looking for a man
1973 Appointment
1974 Autumn
1976 Wounded animals
1976 Sweet woman
1977 I guarantee life
1977 Profitable place
1977 Love Yarovaya
1977 Feedback
1977 Funny people!
1977 Truffaldino from Bergamo
1978 Citizen Nikanorova is waiting for you
1978 Footprint on the ground
1978 Leaving - go away
1979 Fall Marathon (Sad Comedy)
1979 Vacation in September
1980 White snow of Russia
1980 Dulcinea Toboso
1980 Imaginary patient
1980 Uninvited friend
1980 Say a word about the poor hussar
1980 One day twenty years later
1980 Experts are investigating. Case N15. Gone and didn't come back
1981 Sold Laughter
1982 Children's world
1983 Singles are provided with a hostel
1983 Teen
1983 statute of limitations
1983 Mistress of the orphanage
1984 And life, and tears, and love
1985 Children of the Sun
1985 Winter evening in Gagra
1985 Personal file of Judge Ivanova
1985 Odessa feat
1985 Farewell Slav
1987 Life of Klim Samgin
1988 Aelita, don't pester men
1989 Two arrows. stone age detective
1989 It
1989 Heart is not a stone
1990 Temptation B.
1990 Passport
1990 Dog Feast
1991 $1,000 One Way
1991 Vivat, midshipmen!
1991 Lost in Siberia
1991 Chicken
1991 Promised Heaven
1991 Nuts
1992 Midshipmen-III
1992 Shard of the Challenger
1993 Alphonse
1993 Hostages of the "Devil"
1993 Queen's private life
1995 Moscow holidays
1996 Dear friend of long forgotten years...
1998 Paradise apple
1998 I want to go to jail
2000 Love.Ru - series
2000 Secrets palace coups. Russia. 18th century...
2001 The denouement of St. Petersburg secrets - TV series
2001 Rostov-Papa - series
2001 Love.ru - series
2001 Salome
2003 Criminal Tango

Elena Molchenko married the famous actor Alexander Fatyushin in 1986. Many said that it was a marriage of convenience. By that time, the artist was already known throughout the Soviet Union, and Elena studied at the theater school. The young student did not know that Alexander Konstantinovich had secretly met with Natalya Gundareva for several years. The artist could not forgive the betrayal of her lover.

“It was not a romance, it was more than a romance. She called him Shusha. Moreover, Sasha took an active part in Natasha's life, they had a relationship. Let's just say I didn't fit in. Therefore, when she found out that we decided to marry Sasha, she almost fainted, ”said Molchenko.

Gundareva and Fatyushin served together in the same theater, played the role of spouses in the cinema. Even the actor's mother accepted Natalya Georgievna as a daughter-in-law. But the actor, seeing the young student Molchenko, decided to choose her as his wife.

The lovers invited Gundareva to the wedding. The actress thought for a long time. As a result, Natalya Georgievna was among the guests. And even made a toast to a former lover.

“I hope that Shurka will not let us down,” Gundareva told the newlyweds.

Elena and Alexander Konstantinovich lived together for almost 20 years. As Molchenko admitted, only in marriage did she find out that the actor suffered from alcoholism.

“Sasha comes from a family with good noble roots, but his parents ... His father was a taxi driver, his brother was a taxi driver. They were simple Ryazan taxi drivers ... It would be strange if he spent his childhood in the library. Sasha was very fond of feasts with friends, ”Elena shared.

Fatyushin and Molchenko never had children. The actor's widow explained that Alexander Konstantinovich was not eager to become a father. “Such a topic ... I can’t say that we were delirious as a child. It just seemed odd to us that he wasn't there. We went to the doctor, he said everything was fine. Well, we agreed on that. I have never experienced the agonizing craving to have children. In the end, I always repeat: everyone’s life is different,” Molchenko said.

Fatyushin died in 2003 in his apartment. The actor was an ardent football fan. When his heart stopped, he was watching the match. Alexander Konstantinovich foresaw death, a few weeks before leaving he wanted to confess in the church. “Yes, it was about three weeks. He said: “I will go to our neighboring church and confess. He returned, the temple would be closed for repairs. I tried somehow not to open his insides, I didn’t ask what was wrong with him ... Sasha, if I may say so, for 17 years life together prepared for his departure, ”Molchenko shared.