Galina Korotkevich is a Soviet and Russian theater and film actress, famous not only for her roles, but also for participating in a documentary about the blockade of Leningrad. Galina Petrovna survived this difficult test, being a very young girl, but this did not prevent her from subsequently becoming a magnificent actress. The biography of Galina Korotkevich, her career and personal life are in this article.
Family and early years
Galina Petrovna Korotkevich was born on August 18, 1921 in Petrograd (modern St. Petersburg). The girl grew up in a very creative family. Her father, Pyotr Korotkevich, was a violinist and performed in restaurants, her mother, Valentina Muravyova, was a pop artist who graduated from the conservatory in the operetta class. Galina’s grandmother and grandfather were also creative people - grandfather was an organist and managed the choir in St. Catherine’s Cathedral, and grandmother, although she worked as a metallurgist at the Obukhov factory, also performed on stage, playing in the amateur theater of this plant. Of course, in such an artistic family, young Galya could not choose the usual profession. From an early age, she sang and danced well, but she dreamed about the acting profession.
Study in wartime
In 1938, immediately after graduating from school, Galya Korotkevich became a student at the Ostrovsky Leningrad Theater Institute, falling into the workshop of Boris Sushkevich. But the war and the blockade of Leningrad prevented her from completing her studies on time. Only in 1945, the future actress was able to return to her faculty, graduating from the institute in 1946. Throughout the blockade, she spoke at the forefront, raising the morale of soldiers. As the artist herself admitted, only a soldier's ration, which was received by all members of the creative team, saved her from death.
Lensovet Theater
Galina Petrovna entered this theater immediately after graduation - in 1946. Then it was still called the New Theater. The first role of Galina Korotkevich in the theater of the Leningrad City Council was the girl Dara in the production of "Madame Minister". Since 1947, her repertoire has added five more small roles - Lisa in the play "An Hour Before Dawn", Lena and Klava in "Sputniks", an unnamed collective farmer in the production of "In the White World" and Chebrets in "Walking through the agony."
But already in 1948, Galina Petrovna made her debut in the title role, playing Sophia in "Mountain of Wit." Among other outstanding works of the actress in the New Theater:
- Marianne ("Mean"),
- Nora ("Nora"),
- Laura ("Little Tragedies - Stone Guest"),
- Snapper ("Comedy of Errors"),
- Princess Eboli ("Don Carlos"),
- Nina ("Masquerade"),
- Sylvia ("Two Veronets"),
- Carolina (Night Rush)
- Hope ("Recent").
However, after 15 years of work on this stage, the actress felt that she was stuck in the same roles and did not advance in creativity. In 1961, she left the Lensovet Theater.
Komissarzhevskaya Theater
Actress Galina Korotkevich was invited to this theater for a long time, and so she decided to change the stage. Even then, the actress felt that this was her native scene. And it turned out that, after all, Galina Petrovna has been serving in the Komissarzhevskaya Theater for 56 years now! Her introductory performance was the production of Maxim Gorky's play "Children of the Sun", where the actress played the role of Lisa. In 1964, Korotkevich performed the role of Epiphanius in the production of Bernard Shaw's play "The Millionaire." This role was and remains one of the most beloved by the actress herself. She has played it over 800 times.
Then followed a wide variety of roles, among which it is worth noting the following:
- Cleopatra Lvovna ("For every sage is quite simplicity").
- Queen Elizabeth ("Giordano Bruno").
- Zinochka ("Blizzard").
- Aunt Sashiko ("Don’t worry, mother").
- Stepmother (Cinderella).
- Baroness ("Joseph Schweik v. Franz Joseph").
- Alice ("Play Strindberg").
- Dzneladze ("Return to Life").
- Klara Zetkin ("Blue Horses on Red Grass").
- Lady Bracknell ("The Importance of Being Serious").
- Aunt Sally ("Down the Mississippi River").
- Medduna ("The Last Love of Nasruddin").
- Margarita ("The Holy Family").
- Nina Alexandrovna ("Idiot").
- Anna Semenovna ("A Month in the Village").
The last premiere today with the participation of Galina Korotkevich was the 2008 performance "Six Dishes from One Chicken", where she played the role of Mother. However, the actress to this day plays on the stage of the theater, over and over again successfully playing her favorite age roles.
Filmography
Being devoted to the theater with all my heart and soul, the actress starred a little in the movies, and therefore the filmography of Galina Korotkevich includes only 9 films. She never went to film screenings herself - she was invited as a famous theater artist.
This is now a movie star at a premium, and most ordinary people can be enticed to the theater only by the presence on the poster of the famous movie name. At that time, it was the other way around - people still put the theater much higher than cinema, and therefore the directors were happy to shoot theatrical celebrities in films. That is why in her first film, Galina Petrovna played the main role - Nadezhda Kovrova in the 1953 film "Spring in Moscow". She already played her in the same performance on the stage of the Lensovet Theater. In the same year, Galina Korotkevich performed another role on the screen that she had previously successfully played in the theater - Sofia Alexandrovna in the film "Shadows" based on the play by Saltykov-Shchedrin.
In 1954, she played the first "new" role in the movie. That is, previously not played in the theater. It was the role of an unnamed fellow traveler in the film "We Met Somewhere." The main role here was Arkady Raikin, who made his debut in this film as a film actor.
Then came the role of Lidochka in the film "The Case" of 1955, again transferred from the stage to the screen, and Maria Burkach in the film "It Began So ..." 1956. After this, the actress did not act until 1968, devoting herself to the stage.
In 68, she appeared in the small role of the movie Trembita. In the credits it was recorded with an error - “T. Korotkevich”. In 1969, Galina Korotkevich played the role of Zinaida Vasilievna in the film "The Invalid Yehudiil Khlamida." The next movie role, which the actress agreed to, appeared only in 1976 - she played a cameo role in Kartashova's film "It Doesn't concern Me". The last screen role at the moment is Evdokia Fedorovna, or Baba Dunya, in the series "Trump Worms" of the series "Streets of Broken Lights-8", filmed in 2006.
Scoring
Not many people know, but in the legendary Soviet film of 1961, “Striped Flight”, the role of the main character Marianne was voiced precisely by Galina Korotkevich. It is not known why Margarita Nazarova, who played this role, did not voice herself. But now in her most famous film, she speaks in the voice of Galina Petrovna. The actress also voiced the heroines of two Czechoslovak films for Soviet distribution - "Game with the Devil" and "Brave Soldier Schweik".
Awards
In 1956, Galina Petrovna received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR, and in 1974 she became People's Artist. In 2009, the actress was awarded the Prize from the Government of St. Petersburg "For outstanding contribution to the development of theater and theatrical art." In 2010, Galina Korotkevich was awarded the Order of Honor.
Personal life
In 1957, Galina Korotkevich married actor Joseph Konopatsky, who was four years younger than her. He was also an actor in the Lensovet Theater at that time. This was not the first marriage of Galina Petrovna, but she never talks about her first husband - it is not known who he is, in what year they got married, in which they divorced. The actress said that marriage with Osia Konopatsky - as she affectionately called her husband - is a marriage of love, and the first - of youth and stupidity.
In 1958, the couple had a daughter, Irina Konopatskaya. She followed in the footsteps of her parents and also became an actress. From Irina, Galina Petrovna has a granddaughter, Catherine. She has already graduated from music school, plays the piano and dreams of devoting her life to dancing.
For an unknown reason, the couple Galina and Joseph divorced, and more Korotkevich did not want to tie the knot.
Present
In 2012, actress Galina Korotkevich took part in the 11th series of the documentary “I Remember the Blockade”, where she spoke about the difficult period of her life and work during the blockade of Leningrad. Many people from the younger generation became interested in the actress only after watching this film, before knowing nothing about her.
Galina Petrovna talked about how important moral support was for soldiers, and it was artists of creative teams who gave it. Being in the second degree of exhaustion, Galina Petrovna danced and sang in the trenches, in the cold, in the pouring rain. As she herself repeated more than once, she managed to survive only thanks to this constant tension. If she relaxed for at least a second, stopped doing her job, she would immediately feel hunger, cold and the breath of death.
Now the actress continues to play in the theater, keeps fit with regular dances and can easily make a wheel in her arms. And this is 97 years old! She goes fishing, engages in acting skills with her granddaughter and says that the main secret of her vigor and youth is kindness, constant creativity and lack of envy.