Valentina Vladimirova

Valentina Vladimirova was a Russian character actress who worked extensively in Soviet film. Born in Vasilevka, a village near Odessa, she studied economics and accounting at the Kharkov Institute of Engineering and Economics for two years before leaving to pursue acting. In Moscow she trained at the Soviet State Institute for Cinema, graduating in 1955; her teachers included Boris Bibikov and Olga Pyzhova. Her screen debut came in Mikhail Kalatozov's Pervyy eshelon (1956), and he also directed her in The Cranes Are Flying (1957). She went on to appear in films by many leading Russian directors, among them Mikhail Shvejtser, Boris Barnet, Eldar Ryazanov, and Stanislav Rostotskiy. In Belyy Bim Chernoe ukho (1977), directed by Stanislav Rostotskiy, she played the role opposite Vyacheslav Tikhonov for which she became best known. She was named Honored Actress of the Russian Federation in 1969 and died in 1994.