Lyudmila Maksakova and Vasily Lanovoy
Everyone knows that the 82-year-old People’s Artist is a strong and tough woman and will not go into her pocket for a word. Remember how Lyudmila Maksakova did not like the questions of Yulia Menshova, and the actress attacked the presenter on the air? Since then, Lyudmila Vasilievna has given interviews even less frequently. He prefers talking about the theater to talking about the personal. Meanwhile, each of her love stories (and today we will tell only a few from the rich biography of the people’s artist) could form the basis of an enchanting series and become a hit.
Father Maksakov did not know. The mother of the actress – prima of the Bolshoi Theater Maria Maksakova – never spoke about him. At one time, rumors persisted that Lyudmila Vasilievna was Stalin’s daughter.
Iosif Vissarionovich was really not indifferent to the opera singer: he did not miss a single premiere with her participation and sensually called Maria Petrovna “my Carmen”. But Lyudmila Vasilievna believes more that her parent is the baritone Alexander Volkov who emigrated to the USA.
One way or another, the future actress grew up with her mother, grandmother and nanny.
“Unfortunately, our house was very feminine,” Maksakova recalled her childhood years. – A real nunnery. There were almost no men in it.
The mother held her daughter in tight grip. Never talked heart to heart, never spoiled. She forbade walking, going to the cinema and visiting. And strangely dressed in antediluvian dresses with frills and capes, old-fashioned bonnets. Luda did not have time for all sorts of teenage shura-mura because of her studies in languages and music.
“I felt like a lonely, unhappy scarecrow, sometimes I even limped on purpose to arouse pity in passers-by,” the artist sighed. – Peers perceived me as a black sheep, the boys called me monkeys and often beat me.
Feelings for the teacher
And yet, her first love happened early: young Lyudochka lost her head from the eminent cello teacher Svyatoslav Knushevitsky. Maksakova, who hated the music school, came to classes only for his sake.
– I remember: I sit at home at night on a stool-stool, watering the deck with tears, moving the bow along the strings, mastering Romberg. The strings were sinewy, hard, my fingers already hurt unbearably, I sob and scream: “I can’t come to Svyatoslav Nikolaevich with an unlearned lesson!” It seemed to me tantamount to a crime, – a star was made.
Of course, the honored worker of arts could not reciprocate. Knushevitsky was 32 years older than the student, and his third wife was friends with Maksakova’s mother. With the departure of the teacher, Lyudmila Vasilievna abandoned the cello and became interested in literature.
Pregnant Ira
Maksakova was preparing to enter the philological faculty of Moscow State University: she wanted to study Romano-Germanic languages, and eventually translate plays. But then a KVN TV with a lens appeared in the family and changed the fate of the girl. More precisely, once seen on the screen Vasily Lanovoy in Victor Hugo’s play “Marion Delorme”.
– A young man stood on the stage, an indescribable handsome man, in a velvet camisole and over the knee boots! – says Lyudmila Vasilievna. In front of him lay on the floor some hairy woman. He shouted: “Ce vous, Marion, ce vous?”
Having fallen in love with the image of Lanovoy, our heroine rushed to apply to the Shchukin school, which her idol had just graduated from. And she entered the course of Vladimir Etush the first time.
A few years later, the actress was already standing with Lanov on the stage of the Theater. Vakhtangov. In the play “Princess Turandot” he portrayed the prince, and Maksakova – a slave, burning with feelings for him.
Vasily Semenovich and Lyudmila Vasilievna played together for decades – almost until the death of Lanovoy. Colleagues in the shop gossiped that in the past they had a passionate affair. At that time, Maksakova had already managed to give birth to a son and part with the artist Lev Zbarsky. And Lanovoy divorced Tatyana Samoilova and survived the death in a car accident of his pregnant wife, actress Tamara Zyablova. In the arms of each other, the artists allegedly healed spiritual wounds.
In the theater they said that Vasily Semenovich offered Lyudmila Vasilievna to sign. They lived together.
– And then Lanovoy had a parallel passion with another colleague in the troupe – young Irina Kupchenko, – a mutual friend of the artists confided. – She got pregnant instantly. And Lanovoy, as an honest man, took Irina to the registry office. I don’t know, if not for this circumstance, whom he would have chosen from his two women … In the theater, Vasya was told: “You are obliged to marry Kupchenko! Otherwise, you are removed from the tour to Yugoslavia. The scandal was terrible. The performance in which Kupchenko and Maksakova played was cancelled. The Ministry of Culture even had to intervene, where Kupchenko, it seems, had an influential aunt.
Maksakova suffered. But she was able to forgive, maintaining a tender friendship with Lanov.
– Vasily Semenovich was a partner both in life and on stage, – the actress admires. – That is, the absolute certainty that you will be supported, they will be with you, and you can assume that you will always be picked up, even not at the best moment.
Escape from sex
In the mid-60s, in the Crimean sanatorium “Actor”, Lyudmila Vasilievna, an acquaintance and elegant composer, acted with Mikael Tariverdiev. She expected romantic courtship from the gala. And already on the second date, he unceremoniously tried to drag her into bed.
– I come to his room and see Mikael in a tracksuit with outstretched knees! Maksakova is still surprised. – He played a little on the piano, then languidly approached me and with a spectacular gesture untied the belt on my dress. I shied away from him to the door, yelled at the whole hotel: “Open immediately!” – and began to drum with all her strength. Tariverdiev was very surprised: “You are trying so hard in vain – no one locked the door. If you turn the handle, the door will open.” I jumped out into the corridor and ran away.
They met again the following summer. The composer no longer allowed himself familiarities and achieved the love of an actress. Their relationship lasted three years and ended after a fatal accident.
On that fateful evening, the couple celebrated Victory Day in a noisy company at the National restaurant. They say that Tariverdiev was terribly jealous of Maksakov for Grigory Chukhrai. Because of what he drank a couple of glasses of vodka. And after dinner, he got behind the wheel of his Volga.
“Breaking the rules of the road, we rushed at high speed along Gorky Street,” Lyudmila Vasilievna told Caravan back in 2009. – There are festive illuminations everywhere, everything is flooded with lights, crowds of people are walking along the sidewalks … And suddenly a guy suddenly jumps out on the “zebra” in front of the Sovetskaya Hotel, and Tariverdiev, not having time to slow down, knocks him down. As it turned out later, it was a 16-year-old boy who was in a hurry to meet a girl. She was waiting for him on the opposite side of the street and saw everything …
Mikael Leonovich received two years probation. And many people think for nothing, since Maksakova allegedly was driving. For example, the composer’s widow, Vera Gorislavovna, is sure of this. Like, he nobly took the blame. The most interesting thing is that Lyudmila Vasilievna’s daughter, Maria Maksakova, also publicly stated that her mother had hit the guy. Eldar Ryazanov took the same version as the basis for the film “Station for Two” and made Lyudmila Vasilyevna the prototype of the wife of the hero Oleg Basilashvili.
The accident affected Tariverdiev’s health: he suffered several heart attacks and lived only 64 years. And Maksakova periodically recalls the tragedy. So, on a recent tour, she suddenly declared to her stage partner Stanislav Sadalsky:
– I was in the Baltics when I heard that all the dogs were being hung on me. I was horrified: did Mika slander me?! I didn’t even know how to drive back then!
Photo source: Personal archive, Valentin Mastyukov/TASS, Alexander Konkov/TASS, Marina Volosevich/KP