All aphorisms. The lost memoirs of Faina Ranevskaya Faina became friends with Ekaterina Geltser immediately

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Kudiyarova E.
The most necessary aphorisms of Ranevskaya for the most necessary place. 500 quotes of the great Muli

The real name of Ranevskaya is Feldman. She was from a very wealthy family. When Faina Georgievna was asked to write her autobiography, she began like this: “I am the daughter of a poor oilman ...” Things did not go further.

The following entry remained in the Ranevskaya archive:

“They pester, ask to write, write about themselves. I refuse. I don't want to write about myself badly. Okay - indecent. So, we must be silent. Besides, I again began to make mistakes, and this is shameful. It's like a bug on the shirtfront. I know the most important thing, I know what to give, not to take. So I live with this return. Memories are the wealth of old age.”

In her youth, after the revolution, Ranevskaya was very poor and at a difficult moment turned to one of her father's friends for help.

He said to her:

“It’s not enough to give Feldman’s daughter—I can’t. And a lot - I no longer have ...

- The first season in the Crimea, I play in Sumbatov's play the Pretty Woman, seducing a handsome young man. The action takes place in the mountains of the Caucasus. I stand on the mountain and say in a disgustingly tender voice: “My steps are lighter than fluff, I can glide like a snake.” After these words, I managed to knock down the scenery depicting a mountain and hurt my partner painfully. There is laughter in the audience, my partner, moaning, threatens to tear my head off. When I got home, I made a promise to myself to leave the stage.

- I painted the white fox, which became dirty, with ink myself. After drying, I decided to decorate the toilet with it, throwing a fox around my neck. My dress was pink, with a pretense of elegance. When I started talking coquettishly with my partner in the comedy "The Deaf-Mute" (my partner was the actor Yechmenev), he almost fainted when he saw the black neck. The fox kept molting on me. The audience rejoiced at the sight of my black neck, and something like hysteria happened to the premiere of the theater, who was sitting in the box, my former teacher. (it was P.L. Wulff). And this was the second reason for me to leave the stage.

“You know,” Ranevskaya recalled half a century later, “when I saw this bald man on an armored car, I realized that we were in big trouble.

About her life, Faina Georgievna said:

- If I, yielding to requests, began to write about myself, it would be a mournful book - "Fate is a whore."

- In the theater, the talented ones loved me, the mediocre ones hated me, the mongrels bit me and tore me to pieces.

How I envy the brainless!

Who would know my loneliness? Damn him, this same talent that made me unhappy.

“My life is terribly sad. And you want me to stick a lilac bush in my ass and do a striptease in front of you.

- I am a miscarriage of Stanislavsky.

I am a provincial actress. Wherever I served! Only in the city of Vezdesransk did not serve! ..

At one time, it was Eisenstein who gave the shy, stuttering debutante, who had just appeared at Mosfilm, advice that had a significant impact on her life. “Faina,” said Eisenstein, “you will perish if you do not learn to demand attention to yourself, to force people to obey your will. You will die and you will not be an actress!”

Soon Ranevskaya showed her mentor that she had learned something. Upon learning that she was not approved for the role in Ivan the Terrible, she became indignant and, in response to someone's question about the filming of this film, shouted: “I'd rather sell the skin from my ass than shoot with Eisenstein!” The author of "Battleship" was immediately informed, and he beat off an enthusiastic telegram from Alma-Ata: "How is the sale going?"

I am a social psychopath. Komsomol girl with an oar. You can feel me in the subway. It's me standing there, half bowed, in a bathing cap and copper panties, into which all the Octobrists strive to climb. I work in the metro as a sculpture. I was polished by so many paws that even the great prostitute Nana could envy me.

- I, by virtue of the talent allotted to me, squeaked like a mosquito.

- I lived with many theaters, but I never enjoyed it.

Ranevskaya recalled:

- Akhmatova told me: "You are a great actress." And then she added: “Well, yes, I am a great artist, and therefore I don’t play anything, I have to be handed over to the museum. I'm not a great artist, but a great ass."

For many years, Ranevskaya lived in Moscow in Staropimenovskiy Lane. Her room in a large communal apartment rested with a window against the wall of a neighboring house and was illuminated by electricity even during daylight hours. To those who came to her for the first time, Faina Georgievna said:

“I live like Diogenes. See, a day with fire!

Maria Mironova she said:

- This is not a room. This is a real well. I feel like a bucket that was dropped there.

“But you can’t live like that, Faina.

Who told you that this is life?

Mironova resolutely went to the window. She pulled the handle and stopped. The window leaned against a blank wall.

- God! You don't even have a window open.

- For the young lady, beef, for shit, a shard.

This eerie room with a glassed-in bay window was a witness to historical dialogues and absurd scenes. Eisenstein called here one night. The already unnaturally high voice of the director sounded with a painful shrillness:

- Faina! Listen carefully. I have just come from the Kremlin. Do you know what Stalin said about you?!

- Here Comrade Zharov is a good actor, he sticks on a mustache, sideburns or puts on a beard, and all the same it is immediately clear that this is Zharov. But Ranevskaya does not stick anything and is always different anyway.

– How do you live? Ia Savvin once asked Ranevskaya.

- At home, cockroaches crawl over me, like spectators on Genk Bortnikov, - Faina Georgievna answered.

- Faina Georgievna, how are you?

“Do you know what shit is, honey?” So it is in comparison with my life - jam.

- How is life, Faina Georgievna?

- I told you last year that shit. But then it was marzipan.

– Life is a long jump from p...zdy to the grave.

“Life is a short walk before eternal sleep.

- Life passes and does not bow, like an angry neighbor.

- My God, how life slipped by, I never even heard the nightingales sing.

- When I die, bury me and write on the monument: "Died of disgust."

Why don't you write memoirs?

“Life takes so much time from me that I don’t have time to write about it.

Ranevskaya, when asked how she feels today, replied:

– Disgusting passport data. I looked at my passport, saw what year I was born, and just gasped ...

- A person's passport is his misfortune, because a person must always be eighteen, and a passport only reminds you that you can live like an eighteen year old.

Ranevskaya said:

“Old age is just disgusting. I believe that this is the ignorance of God when he allows you to live to old age. Lord, everyone is already gone, but I still live. Birman - ita died, and I did not expect this from her. It’s scary when you’re eighteen inside, when you admire beautiful music, poetry, painting, and it’s time for you, you haven’t done anything, but you’re just starting to live!

“Third hour of the night. I know I won’t fall asleep, I’ll think about where to get money to rest during my vacation, and not alone, but with P.L. (Pavla Leontievna Wulf).

She went through all the papers, searched all the pockets and did not find anything resembling banknotes. 48th year, May 30.

(From the notebook of the People's Artist)

Ranevskaya indignantly declares: - Oh, these unbearable journalists! Half of the lies they spread about me are not true.

- The old mug did not become my tragedy - at the age of 22 I already put on make-up as an old woman, and I got used to it and fell in love with my old women in roles. And recently she wrote to my peer: “Old women, I loved you, be vigilant!”

Knipper-Chekhova, a marvelous old woman, once told me: "I only started to wear perfume in my old age."

Old women are vicious, and by the end of life there are bitches, and gossips, and scoundrels ... Old women, according to my observations, often do not have the art of being old. And to old age it is necessary to get good from morning to evening!

- Lonely. Mortal anguish. I am 81 years old.

I'm sitting in Moscow, it's summer, I can't leave the dog. They rented me a house outside the city and with a toilet. And at my age, one can be a lover - a home closet. //__ * * * __//

Getting old is boring, but it's the only way to live long.

“Old age,” Ranevskaya said, “is the time when candles on a birthday cake cost more than the cake itself, and half of the urine goes to tests. //__ * * * __//

– Old age is when it’s not bad dreams that bother you, but bad reality.

Ranevskaya told Zinovy ​​Paperny:

- Young man! I still remember decent people. God, I'm old!

Memories are the treasures of old age.

- Success is the only unforgivable sin in relation to your loved one.

- The satellite of glory is loneliness.

Loneliness is a condition that cannot be cured.

- When the jumper's legs hurt, she jumps while sitting.

Optimism is a lack of information.

Summing up, Ranevskaya said: - I was born unrevealed and I am leaving life unrevealed. I don't...

“I was smart enough to live my life stupidly.

- My life. Lived around, everything was not possible. Like a redhead by the carpet.

“All my life I have swum in the toilet with a butterfly stroke.

- Nothing but despair from the impossibility of changing anything in my destiny.

“It has always been a mystery to me how great actors could play with artists from whom there is nothing to catch, even a runny nose. How to explain mediocrity: no one will come to you, because there is nothing to take from you. Do you understand my shallow thought?

(Ranevskaya, from the notebook)

Ranevskaya said:

- Birds swear like actresses because of roles. I saw how the sparrow obviously spoke taunts to another, tiny and weak, and as a result poked him in the head with his beak. Everything is like people.

- I do not recognize the word "play". You can play cards, horse races, checkers. You have to live on the stage.

- This is not a theater, but a country toilet. I go to the current theater the way I went to have an abortion in my youth, and to pull my teeth in my old age. After all, you know, as if Stanislavsky was not born. They wonder why I play differently every time.

About the new actress accepted into the Mossovet Theater:

- And what nature does not do with man!

“She doesn’t have a face, but a hoof,” Ranevskaya said about one actress.

“A mixture of bluebell and rattlesnake,” she said of another.

The chief artist of the "Mossovet" Alexander Vasiliev was characterized by Ranevskaya as follows: "A man with a vinegar voice."

About fellow artists:

- This actress's ass hangs and dangles like a hussar's bag.

About one director:

“He will die from the expansion of fantasy.

“Pipi on the tram is all he has done in art.

Ranevskaya about a passing lady: - Such an ass is called "ass-playing".

And about the other: “With such an ass, you should stay at home!”

Discussing a recently deceased actress friend:

“I wish I had her legs—she had lovely legs!” Too bad they're gone now.

Once Ranevskaya participated in a meeting of the selection committee at the theater institute.

One, two, three.

The last entrant gets the task as an additional question:

- Girl, show us something very erotic, with a cool bummer at the end.

A second later, the selection committee hears a gentle moan:

– A... aa... aaa... Aa-a-a-pchhi!!!

Ranevskaya and Maretskaya are walking along Tverskaya. Ranevskaya says:

“That blind man to whom you gave the coin is not pretending, he really does not see.

- Why did you decide so?

- He told you: "Thank you, beauty!"

Ranevskaya and Marlene Dietrich meet.

“Tell me,” Ranevskaya asks, “is that why you are all so thin and slender, and we are big and fat?”

- It’s just that our diet is special: in the morning - a cupcake, in the evening - sex.

Well, what if it doesn't help?

- Then eliminate the flour.

- Criticess - Amazons in menopause.

- When you need to go to a troupe meeting, it feels like a tasting of honey with castor oil is coming up.

- Delyags, adventurers and all sorts of petty crooks of the pen! They trade the soul like buttons.

Director Varpakhovsky was warned: be vigilant. Be on your guard. Ranevskaya will tell you that she was born in the bowels of the Moscow Art Theater.

“Very well, I think so myself.

- Yes, but after that he will add that you would not have been taken to the Moscow Art Theater even as a cloakroom attendant.

“For what reason?”

“No one knows. She can say everything.

“I can do something too.

Don't reprimand her.

- How, in general?

- Say that you dream of an accurate psychological drawing.

- Everything. However, don't say that either.

- But you can't work!

- Be carefull.

- Faina Georgievna, pronounce the text in such a way that no one turns around at you.

Is that your directorial credo?

Yes, as long as it is.

- Don't cheat on him for as long as possible. It is very kind of you to have such a pleasant credo. Today is wonderful weather. In the spring, my ass usually hurts, oh, sorry, I wanted to say backbone, but now I feel like a college girl after the exam ... Look, dog! My poor dog! She must have been abandoned! Come to me, come... pet her immediately. Otherwise I won't be able to rehearse. This is my acting credo. Let her think that she is loved. Do you know why my personal life and career did not work out? Because nobody loved me. If you are not loved, you can neither rehearse nor live. Stroke some more please...

- Everything you do is amazing, Faina Georgievna. Just one note. There is a place in the second act - I would ask, if you, of course, agree ...

The lowest request followed.

In the evening Ranevskaya called:

- Nelochka, give me your word that you will speak to me sincerely.

- I give you my word, Faina Georgievna.

“Tell me, am I not the lousiest actress?”

- Lord, Faina Georgievna, what are you talking about! You are amazing! You are great at rehearsing.

- Yes? Then answer me: how can I work with a director who said I'm shit?!

Cinema is a barefoot establishment.

About his work in the cinema: "The money is eaten, but the shame remains."

– To star in a bad film is like spitting into eternity.

- I receive letters: "Help me become an actor." I answer: "God will help!"

“When they don’t give me a role, I feel like a pianist whose hands have been cut off.

“The pearls that I will wear in the first act must be real,” the capricious young actress demands.

“Everything will be real,” Ranevskaya reassures her: “Everything: pearls in the first act, poison in the last.

Ranevskaya dreamed of a real role all her life. She said that she learned to play only in her old age. All the years she accumulated the ability to see and reflect, understand and feel, but the more firmly she mastered the sad science of existence, the more obvious the impossibility of full self-realization on stage became. It turned out that there is no Role or Director for her.

The role was not invented. The director was not born.

Seeing the performance by actress X. of the role of an Uzbek girl in the play Kahara at the Mossovet branch on Pushkinskaya Street, Ranevskaya exclaimed: “I can’t when a whore poses innocence!”

Ranevskaya wanted to get into the troupe of the Art Theater.

Kachalov arranged a meeting with Nemirovich-Danchenchenko. Excited, she entered the office. Vladimir Ivanonovich started the conversation - he has not yet seen Ranevskaya on stage, but they speak well of her. We need to think about whether she should join the theater troupe. Ranevskaya jumped up, began to bow, thank and, worried, forgot the name and patronymic of the master: “I am so touched, dear Vasily Stepanovich!” she said coldly. “He somehow looked at me strangely,” says Ranevskaya, “I ran out of the office without saying goodbye.” She told everything to Kachalov in tears. He was confused - but again went to Nemirovich with a request to take Ranevskaya a second time. “No, Vasily Ivanovich,” said Nemirovich, “and don’t ask; she's not normal. I'm afraid of her."

Once, looking at Galina Sergeeva, the performer of the role of "Dumpling", and appreciating her deep neckline, Ranevskaya said with her marvelous bass, to the delight of Mikhail Romm, the director of the film: "Oh, don't have a hundred rubles, but have two breasts."

In the fall of 1942, Eisenstein asked Ranevskaya to be approved for the role of Euphrosyne in the film Ivan the Terrible. The Minister of Cinematography Bolshakov resolutely opposed and in a letter to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Shcherbakov wrote: "The Semitic features of Ranevskaya stand out very clearly, especially in close-ups."

In a conversation, Vasily Katanyan told Ranevskaya that he had watched Hamlet at Okhlopkov's.

- And how is Babanova in Ophelia? Faina Georgievna asked.

“Well, you seem to be a kind person. I was told that this is a lapdog in menopause, - Ranevskaya quipped.

Okhlopkov rehearsed the play with Ranevskaya. She is on the stage, in the hall, at the director's table. Okhlopkov: “Fanya, please, stand a little to the left, two steps. So, now a little step forward. And suddenly he shouted demandingly: “Higher, higher, please!” Ranevskaya rose on her toes, stretched out her neck as best she could. “No, no,” shouted Okhlopkov, “not enough! You need to go even higher!” “Where higher,” Ranevskaya was indignant, “I’m like a bird, I can’t fly!”

“What are you, Fanechka,” Okhlopkov was surprised, “I’m not you: the fitters are hanging flags behind our backs!”

“Come, I will show you photographs of unknown people's artists of the USSR,” Ranevskaya called to her.

- Faina Georgievna! Galya Volchek directed The Cherry Orchard.

- My God, what a horror! She will sell it in the first act.

- Yursky is in heat for the profession of director. Although he is a great actor.

- Well, I come across faces, not faces, but personal grief! I enter the theater like a garbage chute: falseness, cruelty, hypocrisy. Not one honest word, not one honest eye! Careerism, meanness, greedy old women!

Tired of the theatre. Country toilet. It's a shame to end your life in the toilet.

“... I stopped thinking about the public and immediately lost my shame. Or maybe, in the literal sense, “I lost my shame” - I don’t know anything about myself.

With rapture, I would beat the faces of all hacks, but I endure. I endure ignorance, I endure lies, I endure the miserable existence of a semi-beggar, I endure and will endure until the end of my days.

I even tolerate Zavadsky.”

(From a notebook)

Ranevskaya was constantly late for rehearsals. Zavadsky was tired of this, and he asked the actors that if Ranevskaya was late again, just ignore her.

Runs in, out of breath, to the rehearsal Faina Georgievna:

- Hello!

Everyone is silent.

- Hello!

Nobody pays attention. She for the third time:

- Hello!

Again the same reaction.

– Oh, there is no one?! Then I'll go possu.

“Doctor, lately I have been very concerned about my mental abilities,” Ranevskaya complains to the psychiatrist.

- What's the matter? What are the symptoms?

- Very disturbing: everything that Zavadsky says seems reasonable to me.

- Nonna, is the artist N. dead?

- That's what I see, he lies in a coffin ...

- Oh, you know, Zavadsky has such grief!

- What grief?

- He died.

Ranevskaya forgot the name of the actress with whom she was supposed to play on stage:

- Well, this one, like her ... So broad-shouldered in the ass ...

- Why, Faina Georgievna, do you not put your signature under this play? You almost rewrote it for the author!

- And that suits me. I play the role of eggs: I participate, but do not enter.

Upon learning that her friends were going to the theater today to see her on stage, Ranevskaya tried to dissuade them:

- You shouldn't go: the play is boring and the staging is weak ... But since you're going anyway, I advise you to leave after the second act.

- Why after the second?

- After the first one, there is a very big crush in the wardrobe.

They say that this performance is not a success with the audience?

“Well, that’s putting it mildly,” Ranevskaya remarked. I called the ticket office yesterday and asked when the performance started.

- They answered me: “And when will it be convenient for you?”

“I was at the theater yesterday,” Ranevskaya said. - The actors played so badly, especially Desdemona, that when Othello strangled her, the audience applauded for a very long time.

“I am very sorry, Faina Georgievna, that you were not at the premiere of my new play,” Ranevskoy Viktor Rozov boasted. - The people at the checkout staged a uniform massacre!

- And How? Did they get their money back?

- Well, Faina Georgievna, why didn’t you like the ending of my last play?

- It is too far from the beginning.

Once she said:

- I am watching this film for the fourth time and I must tell you that today the actors played like never before.

Returning to the hotel on the first day after arriving on tour in a provincial town, Ranevskaya laughingly told how she heard such a replica of an aborigine in front of the theater: “The performance is tonight, but they still can’t decide what they will play!”

And he pointed to a poster that said Crazy Day, or The Marriage of Figaro.

Ranevskaya repeated:

“I have only forty-five minutes left to live. When will I still be given an interesting role?

She was sent a play by Jean Anouille "Supper at Senlis", where there was a small role of an old actress. Soon Ranevskaya called Marina Neelova:

“Imagine that a hungry man was offered a montpensier. Do you understand me? Hey!"

At the Mossovet Theatre, where Ranevskaya worked in recent years, she did not stop arguing with the main director Yuri Zavadsky. And then she gave free rein to her sharp tongue.

When Ranevskaya was asked why she did not go to Zavadsky's talks about the profession of an actor, Faina Georgievna answered:

“I don't like Mass in a mess.

During the rehearsal, Zavadsky was offended by the actors for something, could not restrain himself, shouted and ran out of the rehearsal room, slamming the door, shouting: "I'm going to hang myself!" Everyone was crushed. Ranevskaya's calm voice rang out in the silence: “Yuri Alexandrovich will be right back. At this time, he goes to the toilet.

In "Storm" by Bill-Belotserkovsky, Ranevskaya played the Speculator with pleasure. It was a text composed by her - the author allowed it. After the Ranevskaya scene, there was an ovation, and the audience immediately left. "Storm" had a long life in different versions, and Zavadsky removed her Speculator from the performance. Ranevskaya asked him: “Why?”

Zavadsky replied: “You play your role of a speculator too well, and for this she is remembered almost as the main figure of the performance.” Ranevskaya suggested: "If necessary for the cause, I will play my role worse."

Once Zavadsky shouted to Ranevskaya from the audience: “Faina, you gobbled up my whole idea with your antics!” “That’s why I feel like I’ve eaten shit,” Faina muttered quite loudly. "Get out of the theater!" the master shouted. Ranevskaya, approaching the proscenium, answered him: “Get out of art !!”

Responsiveness was not a strong point of Zavadsky's nature. And he did not want to pretend for a long time. When Ranevskaya had a heart attack on tour, Zavadsky personally took her to the hospital. I waited until the spasm was removed, injections were given.

On the way back he asked: “What did they say, Faina?” - "Something - angina pectoris."

Zavadsky was upset, exclaimed: “What a horror - angina pectoris!” And a minute later, admiring the scenery outside the car window, he began to sing:

"Angina pectoris, angina pectoris."

Ranevskaya said:

- Zavadsky will catch a cold only at my funeral.

- Zavadsky is given awards not on merit, but on needs. He does not have only the title of "Mother Heroine".

- Zavadsky dreams that he is buried in Red Square.

- Zavadsky was born not in a shirt, but in a raccoon coat.

Ranevskaya called Zavadsky a senile entertainer, discounted by Meyerhold, a perpetuum male.

Somehow, she and other actors were waiting for Zavadsky to come to the rehearsal, who had just received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor on his birthday.

After a long wait for the director, Ranevskaya said loudly:

“Well, where is our Gertrude?”

Ranevskaya was generally a lover of abbreviations. Once, the start of the dress rehearsal was postponed, first for an hour, then for another 15 minutes. They were waiting for a representative of the district committee - a very middle-aged lady, an honored worker of culture. Ranevskaya, who had not left the stage all this time, in great irritation asked into the microphone:

– Has anyone seen our ZasRaKu?!

The creative searches of Zavadsky were attested by Ranevskaya only as "the vagaries of a pregnant kangaroo."

Making a mournful face, Ranevskaya remarked:

- The family is not without a director.

Ranevskaya said to the novice composer who composed the lullaby:

- Dear, even a lullaby should be written in such a way that people do not fall asleep from boredom.

Once Ranevskaya was stopped in the Actor's House by a poet who holds a leading position in the Writers' Union.

- Hello, Faina Georgievna! How are you doing?

“Very good of you to ask. At least someone is interested in how I live! Let's step aside and I'll tell you everything with pleasure.

No, no, sorry, but I'm in a hurry. You know, I still have to go to the meeting.

“But you wonder how I live!” Why do you immediately run away, you listen. Moreover, I will not detain you for a long time, forty minutes, no more.

The leading poet began to flee.

– Why then ask how I live?! Ranevskaya called after him.

For the performance of works on the stage and in the theater, writers and composers receive royalties from the box office.

Ranevskaya once said about this:

- And the playwrights have settled down quite well - they receive royalties from each performance of their plays! Nobody else gets anything like this. Take, for example, the architect Rerberg. According to his project, the building of the Central Telegraph on Tverskaya was built in Moscow. Even a board hangs with an inscription that this building was erected according to the project of Ivan Ivanovich Rerberg. However, he is not paid deductions for the telegrams that are served in his house!

“Take an example from me,” one soloist of the Bolshoi Theater once said to Ranevskaya. I recently insured my voice for a very large sum.

“Well, what did you buy with that money?”

Ranevskaya roamed the theaters. Theater critic Natalya Krymova asked:

- Why all this, Faina Georgievna?

- I was looking for ... - Ranevskaya answered.

- What were you looking for?

- Holy Art.

- At the Tretyakov Gallery...

Olga Aroseva said that, already at an advanced age, Faina Georgievna was walking down the street, slipped and fell. Lying on the sidewalk and screaming in his inimitable voice:

- People! Pick me up! After all, folk artists do not lie on the street!

Once Ranevskaya said, sorting through a pile of letters from fans: “Do they love me?” The audience, applauding the great artist, shouted "Bravo!" tall aunt with a loud voice. Of course, Faina Georgievna did not seriously count on self-love. But the love of thousands and thousands of strangers, distant, strangers is the last straw of a lonely person.

During the tour of the Mossovet Theater in Odessa, the cashier said:

- When Ranevskaya walks through the city, all of Odessa makes her an apotheosis.

A fan asks for Ranevskaya's home phone number. She:

"Honey, how do I know him?" I never call myself.

Valentin Markovich Shkolnikov, Managing Director of the Theater named after

Moscow City Council, recalled:

“On tour in Odessa, some lady ran after us for a long time, then asked:

- Oh, are you her?

Ranevskaya calmly answered in her bass voice:

Yes, I am her.

In Odessa, during a tour, one passenger on the bus squeezed her way to Ranevskaya, took possession of her hand and solemnly declared:

- Allow me to mentally shake your hand!

Once, in a park near the house, a woman turned to Ranevskaya:

“Sorry, your face is very familiar to me. Are you not an artist?

Ranevskaya sharply retorted:

Nothing like that, I'm a dental technician.

The woman, however, did not calm down, the conversation continued, the conversation turned to age, the interlocutor asked Faina Georgievna:

- And how old are you?

Ranevskaya answered proudly and indignantly:

The whole country knows about it!

Once Ranevskaya, picking up the phone, heard the voice of one of her fans, which was very annoying to her, and said:

Sorry, I can't continue the conversation. I'm talking from a machine, and there's a big line here.

- Comrade Ranevskaya, excuse me, how old are you?

On Saturday it will be one hundred and fifteen.

He was dumbfounded:

– In such years and so to play!

In the carriage compartment, an annoying fellow traveler tries to talk to Ranevskaya:

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Smirnova.

- But not me.

Brezhnev, presenting the Order of Lenin to Ranevskaya in the Kremlin, blurted out:

- Mulya! Don't make me nervous!

“Leonid Ilyich,” Ranevskaya said offendedly, “either boys or hooligans address me like that.

The General Secretary was embarrassed, blushed and mumbled, justifying himself:

“I'm sorry, but I love you very much.

“No one, except for dead leaders, wants to endure my idly dangling breasts,” Ranevskaya complained.

Faina Ranevskaya

I am Faina Ranevskaya

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2013

* * *

Ranevskaya, unlike most other famous people, did not leave memoirs.

She was repeatedly offered to write memoirs and even paid an advance. She started, quit and returned the money. Perhaps she was generally negative about memoirs, and even when she was offered to write about Akhmatova, she replied that “there is also a posthumous execution, these are the memories of her“ best ”friends about her.”

And so it happened that there are no full-fledged memoirs of Ranevskaya, there are only small fragments - drafts, diary entries, letters, interviews. This is very sad, and not only because she could tell a lot of interesting things, but also because she had a serious literary talent. She masterfully mastered the word, could express in a short, precise phrase what many would not have been able to explain in a dozen sentences. She easily composed literary parodies and anecdotes, wrote poetry ...

However, once Ranevskaya nevertheless brought her book of memoirs to the end. She worked on it for three years, and then ... destroyed it. In one private conversation, she said that no one would allow her to write the whole truth about herself, and she did not want to lie. Perhaps this was her uncompromising attitude. And perhaps there were other reasons. We can only guess...

“I don’t want to write about myself badly. Okay - indecent. So, we must be silent. Besides, I again began to make mistakes, and this is shameful. It's like a bug on the shirtfront. I know the most important thing, I know what to give, not to take. So I live with this return. Memories are the wealth of old age.”

Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya was born in Taganrog in 1896 to Girsh Khaimovich and Milka Rafailovna Feldman.

Of course, then her last name was also Feldman - she became Ranevskaya much later, when she chose her acting pseudonym.

Her father, Girsh Khaimovich Feldman, was a respected and influential man, he owned a chemical factory for the manufacture of paints and eventually turned into a very wealthy oilman who had great weight in local commercial and industrial circles. In Taganrog, he had a large two-story house in which he lived with his family, several tenement houses, shops, and even the St. Nicholas steamer.

The Feldman family had four children - the eldest daughter Bella, the son Yakov, the daughter Faina and the youngest son Lazar, who died as a child. The house in which they lived has survived to this day, and in 2008 a monument to Faina Ranevskaya in the role of Lyalya from the film "Foundling" was erected near it. However, she herself left her father's house before the revolution and then never came there again.

When Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya was asked to write her autobiography, she began like this: “I am the daughter of a poor oilman ...”

Faina's childhood was not happy.

“I remember my bitter resentment towards everyone around me in my lonely childhood,” she said. At first glance, it is not clear what the matter was, because her family was quite wealthy and moderately loving.

Faina's loneliness was not physical, but psychological - she had a too thin sensitive nature, and she did not have friends and generally close-minded people among those who surrounded her. She recalled that she first felt unhappy at the age of six, when she saw poor tortured animals in a visiting menagerie. They made everyone else laugh, and she cried ...

In addition, she stuttered, and in childhood this is a terrible misfortune. Children are cruel, and little Faina has had enough of the ridicule of her classmates. And the teachers were not distinguished by delicacy and patience. And so it happened that the girl did not feel happy and protected either at home or in the gymnasium. This had a bad effect on her character - she became nervous, withdrawn, almost stopped studying ...

"A child from the first grade of school must be taught the science of loneliness."

“... At the age of five she was vain, she dreamed of receiving a medal for saving drowning people ...

Now I keep medals, orders in a box where I scrawled: “Funeral accessories.”

Faina did not study for long at the gymnasium - she was soon expelled for poor academic performance. Although maybe her parents took her out of there.

In a letter to one of her friends, she later wrote: “I studied at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium in Taganrog ... It was very bad ... I stayed for the second year ... I hated the gymnasium ... the four rules of arithmetic were not given, I solved problems, sobbing, not understanding anything in them. In the problem book ... merchants sold cloth for more than they bought! It wasn't interesting." She begged her parents to take her out of there, the gymnasium, in turn, also wanted to get rid of her, and pretty soon her parents transferred her to home education.

However, at home, Faina received an education no worse than a gymnasium - she was taught reading, arithmetic, foreign languages, music, and, of course, good manners, sewing and housekeeping, as befits a girl from a decent patriarchal family. True, the quality of this education left much to be desired, the father believed that the main thing for a woman was to successfully marry, so he paid little attention to what and how his daughter was taught. And so it turned out that everything that she could need in life, Faina studied herself, being already an adult.

"Damned nineteenth century, damned upbringing: I can't stand when men are sitting."

“Family replaces everything. Therefore, before you start it, you should think about what is more important to you: everything or family.

Faina Ranevskaya "fell ill" with theater, acting on stage, acting in early childhood.

Already at the age of three, she played scenes with her dolls, and each determined the role, like a real director. As she got older, she portrayed everyone who caught her eye, with pleasure playing role after role. And she gained her first real, albeit amateur, theatrical experience at the age of eight, staging and playing with puppet artists the famous children's play "Petrushka".

Ranevskaya said that "Petrushka" was the number one shock of her childhood. The second shock was an excerpt from some color film (probably hand-colored). Twelve-year-old Faina, with bated breath, watched a beautiful love story, and then ran home, broke her piggy bank and handed out money to the neighboring children - so she wanted to do something big and beautiful after seeing the beauty.

Faina Ranevskaya: lost memoirs of an actress

In 1972, Faina Ranevskaya undertook to write her memoirs. Signed an agreement with
WTO publishing house, sat down at the desk for three years, and when
the manuscript was already almost ready - all of a sudden, in one night, everything
destroyed. But, as it turned out, her memories survived ...
It turns out that all these years in the Russian State Archive of Literature
and art was kept in a folder that no one really looked into. A
there are rough sketches of those same memoirs. Lots of records made
on leaflets, blotters, even scraps of cardboard with your own hand
actresses. And in these records - a whole life, with many details ... In
they sound the real voice of Ranevskaya.
“I don’t understand what it is? Feeling of shame? Write about yourself. awkward
somehow. It’s as if I’m washing in a bathhouse, an excursion has come and examines from all
sides, but I'm not well built. For three years I wrote a book of memoirs,
flattered by an advance payment of two thousand rubles, in order to purchase a warm
coat ... Probably, I tore up in vain everything that would make up a book about which
asked the WTO. And now the advance must be returned. Two thousand rubles. God with
them, with money. I will collect, I will give an advance.

Faina Georgievna loved to draw and often spoiled her friends with caricatures. A
here she portrayed herself
Upon learning that I tore up the manuscript, the book of my life, which I wrote in
for three years, Margarita Aliger (Soviet writer, friend
Ranevskaya. - Approx. ed.), scolding me very hard, took from me
word that I will begin to restore in memory everything that I destroyed. Word
have to keep. I will tell about the first, as I remember, and not
chronologically, as it was in the book ...
I was born at the end of the last century, when fainting was still in fashion. to me
I really didn’t like to faint, besides, I never hurt myself,
tried to fall gracefully. Over the years, this hobby has passed, but one of
fainting brought me happiness, great and long. That day I was walking
Stoleshnikov lane, looking at the windows of luxury stores, and
next to me I heard the voice of a man with whom I had been in love before
stupidity. I collected his photographs, wrote letters to him, never
sending.

A page from Ranevskaya's notes. Faina Georgievna wrote to everyone that
came across at hand - with a pencil, pen, and sometimes foreign
felt-tip pens brought by friends
Hearing his voice, she fainted unsuccessfully and hurt herself badly. Me
dragged to a nearby confectionery, put on a sofa (this
the confectionery still exists, in the same place, but then it
belonged to a Frenchwoman with a Frenchman). Compassionate spouses poured me into
mouth the strongest rum, from which I immediately came to my senses, and then again
fainted when that voice sounded again, inquiring about
Am I very upset?
Several years have passed, I have already become an aspiring actress, worked in
provinces and at the end of the season came to Moscow. I saw during the day and
at night there are long queues for tickets to the Art Theatre.
I got brave and wrote him a letter. “The one who is in
Stoleshnikov Lane once, hearing your voice, fainted. I AM
already an actress - a beginner. I came to Moscow with the sole purpose -
get into the theater when you play. I have another purpose in life
now there is not and will not be.
I remember the letter by heart, I composed it for several days and nights. The answer came
very soon: “Dear Faina, please contact the administrator,
which will have two tickets in your name. Yours V. Kachalov. From this evening and
until the end of the life of this amazing artist and unique charm
human lasted our friendship, which I am very proud of. Been to him
constantly, at first shy, worried. Soon he tamed me... He
served as an example to me in his nobility. I really want to tell
about his modesty.
I was present at the same time as you. Iv. (Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov. -
Note. ed.), returning home from the theater, to his wife’s question: how did
rehearsal of "Three Sisters", where he was supposed to play Vershinin, answered:
“Nemirovich removed me from the role and gave it to Balduman. He entered
right. Balduman is much younger than me, you can fall in love with him, but you can fall in love with me
no longer possible." I can imagine how much anger, hatred Nemirovich would have met
with another actor. They would write statements about leaving the theater, complaints about
authorities…

Faina Ranevskaya and Vladimir Voronov in the film "The Man in the Case". 1939
From the first date, Ranevskaya was driven away with stones
According to some special property of memory, in old age one sees and remembers
childhood is surprisingly bright, as if it ended only yesterday. I see myself in
in the yard of the house where I live, a big, very dirty dog ​​is running towards me.
named Bouquet, whom I love dearly. For some faults of the dog, the janitor
scolds her. I have an unbearable desire to repeat everything that is said and
makes a janitor. I twist the goat's leg and pronounce the words, the meaning of which
understood only by adults. I portray everyone who catches my eye.
"Give Christ for the sake of ..." - I say after the poor. "Sugar ice cream", -
I shout after the ice cream man, mumble with my toothless mouth: “I’m going to Athos to God
pray" and walk with a stick, crouched, and I'm four years old.
I am convinced that some people are born to be actors. In connection with
this reminds me of the words of the great artist V. N. Davydov: he once
said, while visiting my mother, and at the same time I was: “Absolutely
a mediocre artist is as rare as an absolutely brilliant one.” So
here “the absolutely mediocre ones are those who, as they usually say, “learn
artist". You can’t learn this, it’s in the blood…
Always envied talent, it started from childhood. Came to visit
older sister, a high school student, read poetry to her, courted, flirted, rotated
eyes, growled like a tiger, stamped his feet, wringed his arms, tore his hair...
Reading made me tremble. The poems were called "The White Veil".
The reading ended with the words: “Only a mother could lie like that.” And sobbed. I AM
was in ecstasy.
Then the sister’s friend read: “I haven’t written to you for a long time and I think that’s all for you.
equals". And she also sobbed, and again my delight and envy and grief, because
that I fail when I try to imitate them. So I can't
to be an actress... Now, towards the end of my life, I don't act on stage.
I hate actors, "players", I can't stand it organically, to the point of physical
disgust. I'm sick of a partner "playing" a role instead of living
what he must do under the circumstances.

"I've lost my mind..." Faina Ranevskaya with Lyubov Orlova and her understudy in
movie Spring. 1947
I remember my toys ... Parsley, Policeman, Gypsy, Janitor, and more
some dolls. I replayed all the roles, showing them puppet
performances. She spoke by changing voices. My Policeman was an indescribable success.
There was a screen and a ladder that I stood on. sweetness, glory
experiences - all behind a screen, then came out with dignity,
bowed ... How could it happen that in childhood I saw a colored
film? They portrayed a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Climbed up the stairs
balcony young man, indescribably handsome, then a girl appeared, indescribably
beautiful, they kissed. Delighted, I cried. It was a shock.
Arriving home, in a state of intoxication from art, with trembling hands I
I grab a piggy bank-sphinx, with small money (parents' payment for drunk
fish oil for me). I break the Sphinx. I'm in a frenzy. I need to make
something big and unusual. From the broken sphinx all my
savings, neighborhood kids swooped in. I tell them: “Take, take, I
do not need anything else!" And now, at 80, I don't need anything either,
even perfume from Paris! They sent them to me - a gift from friends, and now
I go over in my mind who to give them to. I haven't experienced ecstasy for a long time.
Life is over and I still don't know what's what.
... The first date of early youth was unsuccessful. Theatre. Maksim Gorky.
"Philists". Date invitation: "To the artist in a green blouse."
Further, an indication of the meeting place, and a threat: “Just try not to come!”
Signature stamp. I regret not saving this document. Not this way
I received a lot of invitations to a date. That high school student amazed me
heart with a cap, where above the visor was the magnificent coat of arms of the gymnasium ... Coming
on a date, I found a girl at the indicated place who asked
me to leave, as I sat down on her bench, where she has a date.
Soon a hero appeared, not in the least embarrassed at the sight of both of us.

Congratulatory telegram to Viktor Ardov
The hero sat down between us and began to whistle. And the rival demanded that
I immediately retired, to which I reasonably replied: “In this place I
I've made an appointment and I'm not going anywhere." The competitor stated that
budge, I made the same statement. Each of us for a long time
defended her rights, after which the rival lifted several
heavy stones and began to throw them at me. I was in pain, I cried and
left the battlefield, rubbing her bruised places. Then she came back and said:
"You'll see, God will punish you!" And she left, full of dignity.
Mandelstam left without paying
I do not observe in my mongrel the stupidity that oppresses me
Neanderthal friends, but where to get others now? It got cold, the end
December. I hate winter. Snow is like a shroud, winter is good for "dance on ice"
and skis, and now I'm sick of the snow shroud ...

“I am not spoiled by the attention of critics, especially critics,
who became aware that I called them "menopausal Amazons" -
complains Ranevskaya in a letter to a friend, writer Viktor Ardov
Recalling the twenties, I often think of Mandelstam. For the first time I
I saw him when Geltser and I (ballerina Ekaterina Geltser. - Approx.
ed.) sat in a candy store in Moscow. Sat down at the table without an invitation
Mandelstam. I ordered chocolate in a cup, a cake, taking off the bowler hat,
bowed ... And left, giving him the opportunity to pay for him
Geltser, with whom he was not familiar. We laughed after he left, it was
very funny. He left solemnly, raising his head and holding up his little
nose. Then I thought that he was a brilliant person. When I got to know him
verses, I realized that I was not mistaken ...
I first saw Mayakovsky in the house where some kind of school was located, then
whether musical or theatrical, it was called the "School of the Shor Brothers" ...
Mayakovsky was dressed according to fashion: a business card, striped trousers, I remember a handsome
tie. He stood all the time, ate sandwiches, was silent. He was handsome...
The next, last meeting was in Baku in 1925. I saw him in
the theater where she played at the time. He sat alone, in the actors' dressing room. V
theater was his evening ...

Faina Ranevskaya in her youth. 1929
He sat, thinking. I walked in and saw such sadness in his eyes,
what happens to the homeless, abandoned by the owners of dogs. I am confused
said: "We met at the Shorov." He replied that he had been there once.
The actress squeaked under the door: "Nowhere but in Mosselprom." He
said: "These are my poems." The actress giggled outside the door, everyone giggled. His
poisoned the whole evening, and he, with a cigarette stuck to his lip, spoke
genius and audacity. He was a clever man, one of the people of my time.
... And now - one, one, one ... I am saved by books - Pushkin, Tolstoy.
I am very sad - no Pavel Leontyevna, no Akhmatova. Poems by Anna Andreevna
drove you crazy. While in Leningrad, I often went to her out of town, to her
"booth", as she called her hut. I remember she was sitting by the window,
looked at the trees, and when she saw me, she shouted: “Give, give me
Ranevskaya! Obviously, she was lonely, sad. She became
catastrophically stout, stopped going out into the air. I took her
walk. They sat down on the bench and were silent. Leva was far away ... (Akhmatova's son Leo
Gumilyov was arrested four times, the last time in 1949, and
he was released and rehabilitated only in 1956? - Approx. ed.)
Mikhail Yanshin is no more. The actor was extremely talented, and it was
its interesting. He told me how once at a rehearsal he refused
follow the instructions of Stanislavsky. Stanislavsky was taken aback and said:
"Rehearsal is over" - and left. Yanshin was scared, the actors were on him
pounced, wanted to beat off. Yanshin ran home, cried, cursed
myself. The next morning he was called to the telephone. Yanshin understood: he was being fired. But
Konstantin Sergeevich said: “I thought for a long time why you didn’t want to
follow my direction, what was my mistake. I realized you were
are right." Telling this, Yanshin began to cry. I cried too. From love... To me
they said that Yanshin was unkind. I didn't feel it. Against. Was he
I have been very sick and in pain for a long time. We hacked with him in the "Wedding", in a terrible
hacky atmosphere, with a bad, miserable director (meaning
the famous film "Wedding" directed by Isidor Annensky. - Approx. ed.).
Yanshin meekly endured everything, I raged. He comforted me, sorry for
that I'm in a bad theater. He was younger than me ... And I and him, and Olya Androvskaya
experienced - sad ...

In a comic poem to the actress Claudia Polovikova, Ranevskaya expressed
his contempt for titles, apartment warrants, and other material
blessings. 1947
I remember how I found out about Stanislavsky's death. In Zheleznovodsk in the morning
wandered around with a mug of mineral water. The liver hurt, in those days I still
treated. Usually, passing by a newsstand, I bought a newspaper. In her
turned out to be a mourning frame with a notice of the death of Stanislavsky. I AM
I started crying, but it wasn't crying, it was something like a dog barking. I barked:
av, av, av, and so she reached the sanatorium, without ceasing to bark. Rushed at
bed and started crying normally.
Two years before the death of K. S. I rehearsed "Vassa Zheleznova" at the Theater
Red Army. The director of the play, Elizaveta Telesheva, was called to
telephone, called Stanislavsky. I picked up the next phone to listen
everything that K. S. Telesheva said, worried, answered all his questions,
stating that the actor playing in the crowd scene has a toothache. So what
the actor asks permission to bandage his cheek before going on stage, fearing
colds. K.S. categorically forbade bandaging the cheek. Question
Telesheva: "How to be?" K.S. said, “Replace the play.”
In my life with Stanislavsky I had only one meeting. Year in the 16th,
I don’t remember exactly, I crossed the road along Leontievsky Lane. Cab
shouted: "Watch out!" - so then shouted vanki. I bounced off
cab in which Stanislavsky sat. From the joy that I see him gray
head, began to cry and shouted: “My dear boy!” He became
laugh, got up and waved his hat at me, and I ran beside him and shouted:
"My dear boy! .." I feel the feeling of happiness that has gripped me and
now…
Ranevskaya was not accepted to the theater school due to inability
Memories are painfully tired. I remember everything out of order, but
somehow carelessly, randomly ... I was not accepted into the theater school,
inability. The delightful Geltzer, in whose retinue I was
a fan, treated me with participation and arranged me for a "weekend"
(now they say "passing". - Approx. ed.) roles in Malakhovka, summer
theater near Moscow. Introducing me to the entreprise of the theater, at the head of which
was her close friend, said: “Meet, this is my bosom
Fanny's friend, from the provinces." In those distant times in the summer theater
Malakhovka toured the great Sadovskaya, the great Petipa, Pevtsov and more
many other unique...

I remember a sunny summer day, a garden bench near the theater, on which
dozed the old woman. I remember someone greeted her, said:
“Hello, our dear Olga Osipovna!” Then I realized that I was sitting
next to the actress Sadovskaya. She jumped up ... Sadovskaya asked: “What is it with
you? Why are you jumping?" I, stuttering (what happens to me with a strong
excitement), said that I was jumping for happiness that I was sitting next to Sadovskaya.
And now I’ll run to brag about it to everyone ... “What a funny young lady, than you
are you doing?" “I want to be an artist. And now in this theater, on
exits…” - “Where did you study?” I confessed that I was going to drama school
They didn't accept me because I'm not talented and I'm not beautiful. To this day
I am proud that I laughed Sadovskaya herself to tears.
... Here I am playing in Sumbatov's play the Charmer, seducing the young
handsome. The action takes place in the mountains of the Caucasus. I stand on the mountain and say
in a disgustingly tender voice: “My steps are lighter than fluff. I can slide like
snake". After these words, I managed to knock down the scenery depicting a mountain and
hurting my partner. Laughter in the audience. Partner threatens
rip my head off. I made a promise to myself to leave the stage. The fall was
perceived by everyone, including the artist who created the scenery, as a failure
the performance is my fault...
I remember: the white fox, which became dirty, I dyed myself
ink. After drying it, I decided to decorate the toilet with it, throwing a fox around my neck.
My dress was pink, with a pretense of elegance. When I started
flirtatiously talk with a partner, he, seeing my black neck, almost
lost consciousness. It was the second reason for me to leave the stage ... And one day
I had to play the morning good fairy in a children's play. It was winter,
I went to the theater in felt boots and forgot to take them off when I went on stage. I was
reprimanded with the threat of dismissal.

Crimea. Season in the Crimean City Theatre. Hunger. War communism.
Civil War. The authorities changed literally every minute. There were many
so terrible that one cannot forget until the hour of death and what one cannot write about
I want to. And if you don’t say everything, then you don’t say anything. That's why
tore the book...
She pretended that the applause for Stalin applied to her
Don't give a damn. Sloppiness. Disrespect for the actor and the audience. This
theater today. They write to me: “Tell me, how did you become an artist? How
I envy you! You have such a fun life." To everyone who thinks so
I answer: “A real, real actor has a difficult life. Permanent
self dissatisfaction. Soon it will be 60 years since I was on stage, and I only have
one desire, a huge desire, is to play with artists who have me
I could still study. And I say this with complete sincerity. I love you very much
many fellow artists of my generation and younger than me.
Now in the play "Further - Silence" my partner is Rostislav
Plyatt, an actor of rare charm, and as he was called in one newspaper article -
"giant". (Further, a later postscript made by Ranevskaya to this
records. - Approx. ed.) Five years, just five years ago, I was happy and even
enjoyed playing with Plyatt. Now he's a representer, nothing
feels, plays as he played the day before. Stopped working, messed up
cynically. It became difficult, disgusting to play with him, but you have to live, not
"play", children play.
It comes about here about Zavadsky. (Memories refer to the years when
Faina Georgievna serves in the Moscow City Council Theater and "fights" with the main
theater director, Yuri Zavadsky. - Approx. ed.) What to do, this is my
life and my pain now ... Only here I can tell the whole truth and
justify myself, since I was not given the opportunity to say a word in my
protection.

There was a murmur in the heart and brain vessels. The pain was so unbearable that I
screamed. The pressure jumped ... For two days the heart spasm lasted, it was
many doctors… Spasms started after I found out about me
There was a meeting at the theater to which I was not invited. I was accused of
arrogance and arrogance, in the fact that I took possession of the theater machine,
the best room in the hotel. That I am greeted with applause, that I
I always go ahead to take pictures. That in Lviv I went to one
meeting, where I was called to the presidium, to applause related to
Stalin, pretending that the applause applies to me ... All speeches
were only about me, where many accusations were brought against me ...
I realized that I had not been summoned to this meeting by either the party committee or
the local committee, nor the directorate of the theater intentionally. To prevent the assembly
explanations about how the work on the performance was carried out, or rather,
how no work was done by the chief director, who during the period
tour did not lead any rehearsals. I forced to rehearse in
Sverdlovsk, where there were only three rehearsals. At rehearsals Zavadsky
engaged mainly in "drawing" and clearly showed disinterest in
work with me, which upset me deeply. I have been active, but
the director's passivity only exacerbated my annoyance, which, as a result,
and caused a scandal.
Which was expressed in the fact that the main director allowed himself to shout
me: “Get out of the theater!”, to which I answered him with the same phrase
(according to the recollections of those present, Ranevskaya shouted to Zavadsky: “Out
from art! - which was the reason for the proceedings in the theater. -
Note. ed.). I could not react differently to the insult inflicted
me for the first time in my life, moreover, publicly and in no way deservedly, because
that, going towards the theater, despite the prohibition of doctors, I went to
these tours to the Urals. Overcoming malaise, I worked hard ... And even
on the day that the chief director insulted me - on the same evening, too
played, having every right not to play for health reasons. Feeling
commitment to the theater and the audience makes me stay
until the end of the tour...

A page from Ranevskaya's memoirs, where she tells how her mother
mourned the death of Anton Chekhov
After the illegal meeting that took place about me, they came to me
actors ... I was told that after the meeting, the chairman of the local committee, having learned
that they drove me to a fit, said: "It's time to end this" Auschwitz
Ranevskaya". To my question to the comrades why they were silent at the meeting,
did not find an opportunity to refute the fictitious accusations, comrades
They answered that they were afraid of Zavadsky. An evil and petty man
vengeful, which can also deprive of work ... I consider the behavior of the management and
party organizer illegal, cruel and inhuman in relation to the actress of my
age...
In a past life I was a dog
New Year's greetings are coming. I don't understand this. After all, not
congratulations on the months. I don't see a difference.
I sit, as always, without money. Tired of it. Tired of EVERYTHING. Everyone is upset by my
monstrous avarice, for no one believes in poverty. I continue
pay an advance for a torn book. I hate to write, I love to read.
I regret that I did not keep a diary, there was a lot of everything ...
They brought an old dog, with broken legs, and it was treated by good doctors.
A dog is much kinder than a person and nobler. Now she's my big one and,
maybe the only joy. But it is a difficult joy. she guards
won't let anyone into the house. God bless her!
...Recently I realized where, why love for animals is so sad. This
from childhood, from grief experienced - the death of the horse that drove us,
children, to the sea, to the bath. I loved this horse, how can you only love
good man. Once I saw through the window how the janitor and the coachman were dragging
our horse to put him on the cart. I screamed: “Where are you taking
Vasya? The janitor replied: "To the flayer." I didn't know this word yet, but
realized that the horse had died ... And now, after 75 years, I remember the star
the sky and I see clearly how a dead horse is being dragged, and I feel my love for
her sharper than then, in childhood.

I hated governesses who did not love me. But the dog, dirty, with
matted wool, in which even nails got stuck, loved with
tenderness inexpressible. At night, she rattled the chain, running around the big
yard, and would not let me sleep. I climbed out the window, looked at her,
sorry. This dog's name was Bouquet... Probably, in one of the incarnations of my life, I
was a dog, because I love them with "love of my neighbor."
I started learning as an adult. And now, in my old age, I try to find out
I remember more and more. And often I remember the wise man who said: “I know
just that I don't know anything."
I know very well that I am talented, but what have I created? squeaked - and
only. Who, besides my Pavla Leontievna (actress Pavla Vulf, closest
friend of Ranevskaya. - Approx. ed.), wanted me well in the theater? Who
suffered when I was unemployed? Nobody needed me. Nicholas
Okhlopkov, Alexei Dmitrievich Popov were indulgent. Zavadsky
hated. I ran from theater to theater, looking for and not finding. And it's all.
Personal life also did not take place. In general, life passed and did not bow,
like an angry neighbor.

Faina Georgievna (Grigorievna) Ranevskaya(nee Faina Girshevna Feldman) - Soviet actress theater and cinema. Three times laureateStalin Prize (1949, 1951, 1951), People's Artist of the USSR(1961).

Faina Ranevskaya (née Feldman) was born in Taganrog . Her father is Girshi Khaimovich Feldman. Mother - Milka Rafailovna Zagovailova (according to some sources, Valova). Parents got married December 26, 1889.

In addition to Faina, the family already had two eldest sons and a daughter, Bella. By the time of Faina's birth, her father, an honorary member of the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria, was the owner of a dry paint factory, several houses, a store and the St. Nicholas steamer.

She studied at the Taganrog Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium, never graduating from it. At the same time, Faina received the usual home education for a girl from a wealthy family, studied music, singing, foreign languages, and loved to read. She was fond of theater from the age of 14, attended classes at the private theater studio of A. Jagello (A. N. Govberg).

In 1915 she left for Moscow. Ranevskaya lived in a small room on Bolshoi Nikitskaya. It was during these years that she met Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam,Vladimir Mayakovsky, her first meeting with V. I. Kachalov took place. From the memoirs of Ranevskaya herself, she was in love with Kachalov and admired his game.

One autumn, young Faya Feldman signed a contract at the acting exchange to work in the Kerch troupe of Madame Lavrovskaya. The actress was invited "for the role of heroines-coquette with singing and dancing for 35 rubles with their wardrobe". Work in Kerch did not work out - for some reason the public did not show due attention to the new troupe, but there she once took a walk with a certain "experienced tragedian" from the Lavrovskaya theater to Mount Mithridates. On the way to the mountain, they decided to look into the bank (Ranevskaya's mother, secretly from her father, sent money transfers to her daughter). Faina Georgievna recalls:

When we left the massive bank doors, a gust of wind snatched the banknotes from my hands - the entire amount. I stopped, and, following the flying banknotes, said:

How sad when they fly away!
- Why, you are Ranevskaya! exclaimed the companion. Only she could say that!
When I later had to choose a pseudonym, I decided to take the name of the Chekhov heroine. We have something in common with her, far from everything, not at all ...

After graduating from a private theater school, she then played in many theaters, starting with provincial ones (Moscow Region (Malakhovsky Dacha Theater) (1915), Kerch, Feodosia (1915-1916), Rostov-on-Don (1916-1917), Crimea (Mobile "First Soviet theater") (1918-1924), Baku Working Theater(1925-1927 and 1929-1931), Arkhangelsk Drama Theater (1927), Smolensk Drama Theater (1927-1928),Stalingrad Drama Theater(1928-1929)), and then in Moscow, including the theater of the Moscow Department of Public Education (1924), the Chamber Theater (1931-1935), Central Theater of the Red Army(1935-1939), Drama Theater (now named after Mayakovsky) (1943-1949), theatre. A. S. Pushkin (1955-1963), theatre. Moscow City Council(1949-1955 and 1963-1984). Her teacher was Pavla Leontievna Vulf. Stay Ranevskaya in the Theater. The Moscow City Council was accompanied by frequent conflicts with the chief director Yu. A. Zavadsky (which was reflected in numerous folklore stories and anecdotes), which gave rise to the dissimilarity of creative methods: the solution of roles proposed by Ranevskaya was more organic to the theater of the Brechtian type. Ranevskaya theatrically rethought her own everyday life, sometimes turning it into a kind of tragicomic "performance"; in this feature lies the secret of her purely personal popularity, regardless of stage fame. A very peculiar style of speech and behavior of Ranevskaya was recorded in a large amount of folklore, where not all episodes are completely reliable. Many of Ranevskaya's statements (as well as those attributed to her) turned into popular expressions, which was facilitated by capacity and imagery, as well as the absence of "internal censorship", freedom of judgment (for example, in the form of reduced vocabulary). Stylistic flair allowed Ranevskaya to perform in the genre of parody, and not only stage; a cycle of parodic letters of the fictional provincial A. Kafinkin, addressed to the journalist T. Tess, is known.

She made her film debut in 1934 in Mikhail Romm's film Pyshka. In 1939-1941. - actress of the Mosfilm film studio, in 1941-1943. - actress Tashkent film studio. Member Union of Cinematographers of the USSR.

Took part in dubbing cartoons ( Freken Bock v " Carlson is back»).

Faina Ranevskaya died on July 19, 1984 (according to other sources - July 20 and June 20). Buried in New Donskoy cemetery in Moscow with his sister Isabella. On the grave all year round you can see fresh flowers brought by admirers of her talent.

In 1992, the editorial board of the English encyclopedia "Who's Who" was included in the top ten most outstanding actresses of the 20th century.

The image of the actress is displayed in the biographical series "Star of the era" (performer Tatyana Vasilyeva) and "Anna German" (Elena Bondareva-Repina).

Despite the large circle of acquaintances, Faina Georgievna always felt loneliness, from which even the devoted dog Boy, named after Stanislavsky, whom Ranevskaya idolized, did not save. Taking advantage of the gullibility and naivety of the actress, the housekeepers deceived her in the most unscrupulous way, vilely robbing the old woman.

• A catchphrase from the movie Foundling "Mulya, don't annoy me!" invented by Rina Zelyonaya. For the rest of her life, “Mulya” haunted Ranevskaya: the boys screamed like that when they saw her on the streets, this phrase was the first to be remembered when they met her. Even Brezhnev, at the presentation to her in 1976 (in connection with the 80th anniversary) of the Order of Lenin, instead of greeting, said: “Here comes our Mulya, don’t make me nervous!”. Ranevskaya replied: “Leonid Ilyich, this is how boys or hooligans address me!” The General Secretary was embarrassed and added: "I'm sorry, but I love you very much."
• Faina has always been self-critical, she owns the famous saying: “Talent is self-doubt and a painful dissatisfaction with yourself and your shortcomings, which I have never seen in mediocrity.” Artistic councils and commissions, in the presence of which one had to play, at that time were commonplace, when instead of an audience loving the artist, "arbiters of fate" looked at him. Often after such performances, the artist was " in the clamp", But not Ranevskaya: “I play badly, the Committee on Stalin Prizes is watching. The disgusting feeling of an exam."
• Ranevskaya was very afraid that she might be offered to cooperate with the KGB - at that time it was common. One of her acquaintances advised, if such an offer was received, to say that she screamed in her sleep. Then she will not be suitable for cooperation and the offer will be withdrawn. Once, when Faina Georgievna worked at the Mossovet Theater, the party organizer of the theater approached her with a proposal to join the party. “Oh, what are you, my dear! I can't: I scream in my sleep!" - exclaimed Ranevskaya. Whether she was cunning or really mixed up these departments, one can only guess.
• Ranevskaya experienced a tragic death Solomon Mikhoels They were connected by sincere friendship. In her memoirs, the actress describes one dialogue in which, with humor inherent only to her, she said to Mikhoels: “There are people in whom God lives, there are people in whom the devil lives, and there are people in whom only worms live. God lives in you! To which the director replied: "If God lives in me, then He has been exiled into me." (January 14, 1948).

Faina Ranevskaya

Anecdote from personal life

Imagine that you picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. Or they just pressed the button on the “box”, if it’s more familiar. And the room is filled with a low and slightly hoarse female voice:

“I work like a horse. I run, I fuss, I charm, I intercede, I demand, I insist. Thanks to me, in the church we sit on the court benches, and in the theater - on the director's stools. Soldiers salute us! My daughters will soon be written in the velvet book of the first beauties of the court! Who turned our nails into rose petals? A kind sorceress, at the door of which titled ladies wait for weeks. And a sorceress came to our house. The chief royal chef sent me some game yesterday as a gift… In a word, I have so many connections that one can go crazy with fatigue maintaining them. Where is the gratitude? For example, my nose itches, but you can’t scratch it. No, no, go away. Cinderella, don't, or I'll bite you.<За что же, матушка?>Because you yourself didn’t think of helping a poor, helpless woman.”

"Ready! Everything! Well, now they will dance in my palace! I'll take care of them! Marianne, don't worry! The king is a widower! I'll put you on too. We will live! Oh, it's a pity - the kingdom is not enough, there is nowhere to roam! Well nothing! I will quarrel with the neighbors! This I can do. Soldiers! Why are you standing there, open your mouth?! Shout "Hurrah" to the royal brides!

“I went crazy. What a shame."

On the set of the film "Foundling", in the 39th year, she came up with words for her heroine that became winged, but haunted the actress all her life: "Mulya, don't make me nervous!"

Being evacuated in Tashkent, Ranevskaya often walked with Anna Akhmatova. Faina Georgievna recalled: “We wandered around the market, around the old city. Children ran after me and shouted in chorus: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous.” This was very annoying and prevented me from listening to Anna Andreevna. In addition, I acutely hated the role that brought me popularity. I told Akhmatova about it. "Don't be upset, each of us has his own Mulya!" I asked: "What do you have" Mulya? “She clenched her hands under a dark veil” - these are my “Muli”, - said Anna Andreevna.

Several decades later, in the Kremlin, presenting the Order of Lenin to Ranevskaya, the head of state could not resist and said: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous!” “Leonid Ilyich, only hooligans call me that,” Faina Georgievna was offended. Brezhnev blushed: "I'm sorry, but I love you very much."

The sharp-tongued actress owned a lot of caustic and well-aimed statements. Passed from mouth to mouth, they became truly popular - some were overgrown with bright details, others were deprived of details: when, to whom, for what reason this or that phrase was said. In stories about Ranevskaya, it is often difficult to separate truth from fiction, what happened to her from what is attributed to her. Is this not evidence of true love for the actress, her true nationality.

We confess our love for her.

One night after one of the famous night viewings arranged for the "leader of the peoples", Eisenstein called Ranevskaya.

- Faina! Listen carefully. I have just come from the Kremlin. Do you know what Stalin said about you?! “Here is Comrade Zharov a good actor, he sticks on a mustache, sideburns or puts on a beard, and it’s still immediately clear that this is Zharov. But Ranevskaya does not stick anything and is still always different ... "

* * *

Many famous people were invited to the Kremlin for a solemn reception. Among others and Ranevskaya. It was assumed that the great actress would entertain the guests, but she herself did not want to. The owner was disappointed

- It seems to me, Comrade Ranevskaya, that even the biggest fool in the world would not be able to make you laugh.

“Just try it,” suggested Faina Georgievna.

* * *

Ranevskaya recalled:

- Walking along the alley in the government sanatorium in Sochi. Kaganovich comes towards me and immediately starts a conversation:

How are you at the theatre? What are you working on?

- We stage "White Nights" according to Dostoevsky.

Then he exclaims enthusiastically.

- What is the idea, the idea?

“The idea is that a person should not kill a person.

“This is not our idea. Not ours."

And quickly left.

* * *

During the thaw, there were naive people seriously discussing the problem of open borders.

- Faina Georgievna, what would you do if you suddenly opened the borders? – asked the actress.

“I would climb a tree,” she replied.

- Why?

- They'll trample! - Ranevskaya said with conviction.

* * *

Artist "Mossovet" Nikolai Afonin lived next to Ranevskaya. He had a "humpbacked" "Zaporozhets", and sometimes Afonin brought Faina Georgievna home from the theater. Once, three people squeezed into his Zaporozhets from behind, and in front, next to Afonin, the village of Ranevskaya. As she drove up to her house, she asked:

“R-ring, how much is your car worth?”

Afonin said:

- Two thousand two hundred rubles, Faina Georgievna.

“What a f*ck on the part of the government,” Ranevskaya concluded gloomily, getting out of the humpbacked apparatus.

* * *

“You know,” Ranevskaya recalled half a century later, “when I saw this bald man on an armored car, I realized that we were in big trouble.

Ranevskaya developed a special relationship with Yuri Alexandrovich Zavadsky, the chief director of the Mossovet Theater, where Ranevskaya worked in recent years. She called him Fluff, a senile entertainer, a discounted Meyerhold, a perpetuum dog. Zavadsky's creative searches were estimated by her as "whims of a pregnant kangaroo". Once she remarked: "The family is not without a director."

* * *

When Ranevskaya was asked why she did not go to Zavadsky's talks about the profession of an actor, Faina Georgievna replied:

“I don’t take part in masses in a brothel.

* * *

Once, at a rehearsal, Zavadsky shouted from the audience: “Faina, you gobbled up my whole idea with your antics!” “I have a feeling, as if I had eaten shit,” Faina Georgievna muttered. "Get out of the theater!" "Get out of the art!!" - answered Ranevskaya.

* * *

The actress was constantly late for rehearsals, and Zavadsky once asked the actors not to notice her the next time she was late.

Out of breath, Faina Georgievna ran into the rehearsal:

- Hello!

Everyone is silent.

- Hello!

Nobody pays attention.

- Hello!

Silence again.

– Oh, there is no one?! Then I'll go possu.