
Acting
Faina Ranevskaya
Born 1896-08-27 · Taganrog, Don Voisko Oblast, Russian Empire [now Rostov Oblast, Russia]
Faina Georgiyevna Ranevskaya (born Faina Girschevna Feldman, on August 27th, 1896 in Taganrog), was a Soviet theatre and film actress. She is also very well known for her cheeky aphorisms. In childhood, she attended the Mariinskaya Gymnasium for Girls, receiving additional education usual for someone from an affluent family (music, singing, foreign languages). Heavily influenced by her mother's love for the arts, Ranevskaya had a budding interest in theatre and by the age of 14 was attending classes at the private theatre studio of A. Jagiello (A.N. Govberg), graduating in 1914. In 1915 she decided to move to Moscow, becoming estranged from her family due to her choice of career. During these years she met M. Tsvetaeva, O. Mandelstam, V. Mayakovsky, and V. Kachalov. In the post-revolutionary years, her family left Russia and settled in Prague, but she stayed to continue pursuing theatre. She worked in the theatres of Kerch, Rostov-on-Don, at the mobile theatre "The First Soviet Theater" in Crimea, also in Baku, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, etc. In fall of 1915, Ranevskaya signed a contract to work in the Kerch troupe of Madame Lavrovskaya. Sadly, the public did not express great interest in the new troupe. Ranevskaya chose her stage name in honor of the main character in Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard. Once, on a walk with a fellow troupe member, Ranevskaya decided to check into the bank. The actress recalls the birth of this pseudonym: "When we came out of the massive bank doors, a gust of wind tore the banknotes out of my hands – the entire amount. I stopped, and, looking at the flying banknotes, said: 'Shame about the money, but how beautifully it flies away!' 'But indeed, you are Ranevskaya!' exclaimed her companion. 'Only she could say that!' When I later had to choose a pseudonym, I decided to take the surname of Chekhov's heroine. We have something in common–but far from everything, far from everything..." Ranevskaya also used to joke about herself, saying that she was Ranevskaya because she had butterfingers. Ranevskaya's mother and her had both greatly admired the writer himself. In 1934, she made her debut in film as Madame Loiseau in Pyshka (dir. Mikhail Romm), based on Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant. Romain Rolland, a French writer, loved the film (his favorite actor in the movie was Ranevskaya). At his request it was shown in French cinemas and became a box-office hit. She remained both prominent film and theatre actress, although most of her work remained in theatre. In her later years, Ranevskaya professed that meeting Pavla Woolf drastically changed her fate; it was thanks to Woolf that she became an actress. They met in 1918, when Ranevskaya worked as an extra for a circus production. She happened to see Pavla Woolf in "A Nest of the Gentlefolk", which left upon her a big impression. She asked the actress to help her (who willingly accepted), and from that day on they remained very close friends.
Acting credits
6.6A little girl is lost in Moscow and hits the road making fun (not intentionally) of everybody she meets. She'll be back home soon but she will change the life of at least one man forever...
The Foundling
1939
5.1About the life and heroic death of the old Bolshevik-Lugansk resident, participant in the civil war, Aleksandr Yakovlevich Parkhomenko. In 1918, capturing Ukraine, the German occupiers sought to use the Haidamaks, the White Guards and the Greens in their struggle. By order of Voroshilov, Aleksandr Parkhomenko from Lugansk arrives in Tsaritsyn. At the same time, the Germans launched an active offensive. The "red" battalions are poorly armed, however, Parkhomenko manages to raise them to the attack and put the enemy to flight.
Aleksandr Parkhomenko
1942
5.5In search for a better life, Anna leaves her Ukrainian village for a big city. Three years later, she finds herself working two jobs and spending most of her days in a rooming house inhabited by broken people.
Dream
1943
6.6In the fairy kingdom live stepmother, her evil daughters — Anna and Maryana, a limp husband-forester and his daughter from his first marriage — Cinderella. The stepmother exploits the poor girl as a housekeeper. With the help of her godmother-fairy, Cinderella gets to the royal ball, where a beautiful and very kind prince falls in love with her. At midnight, the magic ends, and poor Cinderella has to return to her former life. But on the crystal shoe that Cinderella lost while fleeing the palace to the battle of the palace chimes, the prince searches for the bride.
Cinderella
1947
6.6The New Adventures of Schweik adopted to the WWII reality.
The New Adventures of Schweik
1943
7.1Petty bourgeois Zhigalovs, whose daughter-in-law Dasha is being extradited, find out to their horror that the official Aplombov, who has been caring for Dasha all summer, has dined every day with them and has proved himself to be his bridegroom, is not going to marry at all.
Wedding
1944
5.0Three soldiers make their way into a city occupied by the Nazis.
Native Shores
1943
5.3A romantic story about the girl working in the musical instruments store.
A Girl with Guitar
1958
6.3A drab woman scientist, working on machine to harness solar energy, and a pert concert singer look-alike being courted to play her in a movie swap identities and find personal growth, professional success, love, and happiness.
Spring
1947
4.2Young Lena becomes a chief manager of a workers' club. The problem is this club is not constructed yet and finishing it takes too much effort from a young girl. The solution is found by her grandmother and her 'old guards'. Look out Lena's enemies. Here's her grandma coming!
Be Careful, Grandma!
1961
5.7The story of three young Russsian adventurers against the background of post-revolutionary skirmishes in the Ukraine. The boys get mixed up with a wounded commissar and a marauding White Russian officer. They find themselves in all sorts of predicaments before the Reds arrive to save the day, and become the mascots of a troop of Bolshevik cavalry.
The Ballad of Cossack Golota
1937
4.7A famous writer's long-awaited nap is interrupted by a visit from an aspiring playwright who wishes to show him her latest drama.
Drama
1960
7.1The Kid didn't have to miss Carlson for long - one day he landed in his room again. This means that there will be new adventures and pranks! With Carlson's help, the harsh and bossy Freken Bock will be re-educated and become very kind. And then the friends will all put on a costume show with dancing and drink tea with buns.
Karlson Returns
1970
10.0The Great Patriotic War is over, but Major Sorokin and Colonel Dobrygin still have a lot to do for their homeland. They must go to West Germany in order to find and return the children who were taken out of the Soviet Union by the Nazis and are now kept in atrocious conditions under the supervision of British intelligence. Former allies want to grow real spies out of their children.
They Have a Motherland
1949
6.2No synopsis available yet.
How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
1941
8.0All the girls of one of the Moscow houses can tirelessly jump over a skipping rope. But little Lida did: can't learn to jump. Once in a dream a wise elephant gives her a piece of advice: to learn how to jump, you must first do a good deed...
An Elephant and a Rope
1945
NRA film about outstanding actors of the Soviet stage: Angelina Stepanova, Mark Prudkin, Igor Ilyinsky, Faina Ranevskaya, Veriko Andzhaparidze and others.
Old Masters
1983
5.9A new girl becomes circus star despite her husband objective.
New Attraction Today
1966
9.0The film is about the exploit of a nineteen-year-old soldier of the Great Patriotic War - Alexander Matrosov, who covered the embrasure of the enemy's bunker with his body.
Private Aleksandr Matrosov
1947
6.6Three pilots are best friends and good fighters. During the WWII they are taking an oath to refrain from love until the end of the War. But soon they meet three women-pilots. One by one they give up the oath, and all three fall in love.
The Sky Slow-Mover
1946
5.8A chemist by training, Alexandr Bochkin manages a Moscow dry-cleaning operation, but lives a very comfortable life, taking orders on the side for his speculative "private enterprise," run in conjunction with "Queen Margot". But when his old friend from the chemical institute, Yuri Lebedev arrives in Moscow from the Siberian city of Dalnegorsk, along with a traveling companion, Olga, Bochkin becomes uncomfortable with his job title.
An Easy Life
1964
4.9Soviet and American soldiers are meeting on the shores of the Elbe river in Germany in 1945.
Meeting on the Elbe
1949
5.6Engineer-designer of the Moscow aviation plant Cochin took the secret blueprints home. He didn't know that foreign intelligence had long been hunting for these blueprints...
Engineer Kochin's Error
1939
6.2A film adaptation of the short story of the same name by Guy de Maupassant. The action takes place in the XIX century. Franco-Prussian War of 1870. A group of French bourgeois leaves in a stagecoach from Rouen occupied by Prussian troops. Along with them comes one attractive demimonde lady. The only way to get out is to persuade her, nicknamed "Ball-of-Fat" a la "Boule-de-Suif" to satisfy the lust of the head of the gendarmerie...
Boule de Suif
1934