Olga Baclanova

Olga Baclanova was an actress who began on the Moscow stage and later found success in Hollywood, where she was billed as an exotic blonde temptress. Born in Moscow, she trained at the Moscow Art Theatre and appeared in Russian theater and silent films from 1914. In 1925 she received the Soviet honor Merited Artist of the Republic and came to the United States with a touring production of Lysistrata, staying when the company returned home. Her first film part came in The Dove in 1927, and she was celebrated for The Docks of New York (1928) and as Duchess Josiana in The Man Who Laughs (1928). Her heavy Russian accent made talking pictures difficult, and she was limited mostly to supporting roles. She played the cruel trapeze artist Cleopatra in Tod Browning's controversial Freaks (1932), a film that did not revive her career, which ended in 1943. She worked on stage in New York and London's West End.