Talent does not die - it continues to live in creativity: in roles, in images. It is with these words that I want to start the story of how the life of the actress Lyudmila Marchenko developed. She was delightful, charming, tender, but so miserable. Her fate is "this is the tango of the white moth." Tragic but daring.
Happy start
Lyudmila Marchenko is an actress who not only had a charming appearance. She was very talented, but she was simply not allowed to fully show her talent.
In her youth, all her girlfriends envied her, and the boys involuntarily looked at the fragile beauty. However, she, who has been cherishing the dream of an acting career since childhood, was diligently preparing for her final exams. After graduating from school, she went to enter several theater universities at once. And everything was accepted. Luda chose VGIK and after two months of study at the 1st year she received an offer from the famous Lev Kulidzhanov to star in "Father's House", to which, of course, she agreed.
The release of the film on the screen made 19-year-old Lyudmila Marchenko famous. The fan base has grown. Was among herkhazherov and Ivan Pyryev, who by that time was the chairman of the Union of Cinematographers, the director of Mosfilm, and a deputy of the Supreme Council. Having fallen in love like a boy, the venerable director approved Lyudmila for the role of Nastya in the film "White Nights". He was sure that, being immensely grateful, the young inexperienced actress would agree to many things…
Persistence or obsession?
Pyryev became a frequent guest of the apartment in Demidovsky Lane, which he rented for Lyudmila. With all his actions, he demonstrated that he was the owner of not only housing, but also the tenant herself. Realizing this, L. Marchenko moved to live with her relatives (mother and sister). But this did not stop the persistent director. Lyudmila Marchenko, an aspiring actress, was very afraid of arousing the wrath of her high-ranking boss. Therefore, she did not answer either "yes" or "no", hoping that his enthusiasm would pass. But it wasn't there. Pyryev's persistence gradually grew into an obsession. He no longer hid his feelings for the young actress from anyone, and he increasingly soldered her in noisy companies, hoping that under the influence of alcohol she would finally give up. Luda understood that the situation was heating up. All acquaintances vied with each other advised to agree to the claims of Pyryev, because he was reputed to be cruel and vindictive and, if desired, could ruin Lyudmila's life. But Marchenko could not overcome her disgust, because Ivan Pyryev was the same age as her grandfather, and even the husband of Lyuda's favorite actress, Marina Ladynina.
Even representatives of the Central Committee of the party could not influence the stubborn director. He said that this girl became his last love and he simply could not work without her. After that, no one could influence him.
Lyudmila's refusal caused such an outburst of emotions in him that he seriously decided to ruin Lyudmila's life.
First marriage
Lyudmila Marchenko - an actress, certainly an outstanding one, was left almost without a job, because no one dared to invite her to act without Ivan Pyriev's "command".
She got married soon after. Her husband, MGIMO student Vladimir Verbenko, loved his wife, but was madly jealous. And the rumors about the director in love, which circulated all over Moscow, inflamed him even more. He didn't let her go to work. Arranged terrible scenes, scandals.
Not afraid of the wrath of high-ranking authorities, Alexander Zarkhi offered L. Marchenko a role in the film "My Little Brother". Filming took place in the B altics. Pyriev, still hoping that Lyuda would change her mind, periodically appeared on the site, as if reminding her that her life was in his hands. Sometimes my husband also came. Once they collided, and Vladimir Verbenko, misjudging the presence of Pyryev, packed his things and left his wife.
Failed Natasha Rostova
Pyryev knocked out a cooperative apartment for Lyudmila in a house built specifically for actors. He began to visit her often, continuing to persuade her to marry him. It was at this time that Pyryev wrote the script for War and Peace. He promised Lyudmila the role of Natasha Rostova. Having receivedanother refusal, he handed over the work on the script to Bondarchuk.
New love and new pain
Soon Lyudmila met Valentin Berezin. He held a high position in the exploration party, was a well-to-do person. Becoming his common-law wife, Lyudmila Marchenko, an actress who still dreamed of banal female happiness, could not even imagine what a fatal role this man would play in her fate.
Knowing many representatives of the Moscow bohemia, Berezin often heard gossip about his wife and the famous director. Being a suspicious and unstable person, he did not understand that most of the rumors in the course of the discussion were overgrown with non-existent details. He began to arrange sudden checks, interrogations. Once, having heard enough of "dirty" conversations, he broke loose and attacked Lyudmila. He not only beat her, he maimed and disfigured her, and not only he alth, but also life.
When the aggression receded, he took her to the hospital, keeping silent that he himself had done this. Berezin came up with a legend that she got into an accident. Oddly enough, but Lyudmila confirmed this version, but everyone understood that this was the atrocity of the hands of Berezin himself.
Someone else's child
Doctors were able to save Lyudmila, but her face, disfigured by a cruel jealous man, was now permanently covered with scars. Frightened Valentine tried to stay close to his wife all the time, afraid that she might tell someone about the true circumstances of what had happened. He pretended to be very sorry about his act, asked for forgiveness. And shesorry.
But a new shock awaited her. In 1968, Lyudmila finds out that Berezin has another family, a child is growing up. She, who forgave physical violence, could not bear this betrayal. She collected the belongings of her common-law husband and kicked him out. Perhaps she was in so much pain because she herself could not have children.
Actress Lyudmila Marchenko, whose personal life brought her only misfortune, began to drown out her pain with a drink.
Depression
Loneliness and oblivion completely crippled the morale of the actress. Disfigured and sick, no one needed her. She started drinking heavily.
Vitaly Voitenko, administrator of the Mosconcert, helped her. He was able to pull her out of depression, organized concerts around the country. She traveled to the cities of the Soviet Union, but in each hall she caught in the eyes of the audience not admiration, but pity. Then there was a breakdown, she refused to continue the trip, because every time she was asked the same question: “What are you working on now? Where are you filming now? And there was nothing to answer.
Depression followed again, with a lot of alcohol, pain and tears.
Behind the stone wall
Soon (in the same 1975) actress Lyudmila Marchenko, whose biography is full of tragic and sad events, met Sergei Sokolov. He was also a creative person, he became famous as a talented graphic artist. Sergey fell in love with Lyudmila. The feelings were mutual. Latersome time they got married. Now the former actress has become a housewife. She perfectly coped with the duties of the guardian of the family hearth: she kept the house in order, prepared Sunday dinners … For the first time in her life, Lyudmila was behind her husband, as if behind a stone wall. It cannot be said that she was completely happy. She lacked the theater, cinema, spectators. She wanted to prove herself in her work, but the people she met along the way of life broke her destiny.
In July 1996, L. Marchenko's husband, artist Sergei Sokolov, had a heart attack, followed by a sudden death. This event shocked his wife. She could not imagine her future life alone. She again tried to find solace in alcohol.
Actress Lyudmila Marchenko (photo in the article) outlived Sergei Sokolov by exactly six months. Either the addiction to alcohol crippled her already poor he alth, or loneliness and longing for the only man who truly loved her shortened her days. Be that as it may, on January 23, 1997, the delightful, unfairly forgotten Marchenko Lyudmila passed away. An actress whose cause of death is a banal flu. She deliberately started the disease, did not take medicine, and asked her relatives not to come, so that, allegedly, they would not catch a cold. She did not imagine her life alone, she did not see the meaning in it. She left quietly and imperceptibly. Only a few people came to say goodbye to the once famous actress.
A call from the past
After a while, the phone rang in the apartment where Lyudmila used to liveMarchenko, an actress who rejected a famous admirer and paid for it with her own happiness. The nephew of Lyudmila Vasilievna picked up the phone. It was a friend of L. Marchenko's youth, Yevgeny Peshkov, who called. He had not seen Lyudmila for almost half a century and did not know that she was no longer alive. The sister of the actress, who picked up the phone from her son, of course, remembered the cadet Zhenya Peshkov, who in her distant youth was in love with her sister Lucy. Now the colonel, who went through the war in Afghanistan, is married, has two children … Having learned that Lyudmila Vasilyevna had died, he asked his sister where she was buried. Galina Vasilievna explained where the grave is located at the Vagankovsky cemetery. And when Peshkov called again and said that he could not find the grave, she explained again. Only a few days later, Galina Vasilievna realized that because of the photo faded in the sun, it was impossible to recognize Lyudmila in it. Then she herself found the colonel's phone and called. It turned out that he was still able to find the burial place of L. Marchenko. Not only that, he and his wife commissioned a marble monument and a shadow portrait. Of course, Galina Vasilievna did not have the financial opportunity to do this.
I would like to believe that there are still people left, like Colonel Yevgeny Peshkov, who have not forgotten what a talented person Lyudmila Marchenko was. The actress, whose grave is located on the 25th section of the Vagankovsky cemetery, will forever remain in the memory of a strong, unshakable and principled woman who lived not too long, not too happy, but an honest life.
