The Queen of the episode: actress Nina Grebeshkova has died
Actress Nina Grebeshkova died at the age of 95. She played more than a hundred film roles, and although there was probably not a single major one among them, she was remembered and loved by millions of viewers, because each episode with her participation was vivid, for each passing character she was able to find unique touches that captured the audience's emotions. The main pages of the actress' biography recall Izvestia.
From a working-class family
Nina Pavlovna Grebeshkova was born on November 29, 1930 in Moscow into the simplest family: her father, Pavel Alexandrovich, was a house painter, her mother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, was a seamstress. There were already two sons in the family — Nina became the youngest, everyone's favorite. She enjoyed studying at school from the first grade, but the war interrupted her studies: in 1941, the father of the future actress went to the front, and her mother and three children were evacuated to the village of Surmino in the Penza region. The girl was lucky: together with them, teachers of the Frunze Academy turned out to be among the evacuees, who took over the education of schoolchildren who fled the war. Therefore, Nina Grebeshkova remembered her studies in the evacuation with pleasure. It was there that she strengthened her desire to become a school teacher, which she dreamed of from an early age.
A childhood dream was radically changed by chance. In the 10th grade, having already returned from the evacuation to Moscow, Nina came to her friend Masha Lugovskaya's birthday, the daughter of the famous poet Vladimir Lugovsky. After hearing Nina perform poetry expressively, Lugovsky advised her to try acting. Fascinated by his stories about her acting profession, Nina Grebeshkova made a new, this time final choice of profession.
As Grebeshkova later recalled, in the year of her admission, the competition at the VGIK was about 100 people per place. However, the commission noticed Nina's charming, smiling face right away: she got into the university on her first attempt, entering Vladimir Belokurov's workshop. Already during her studies, she received her first cameo role as the girl Nadia Voronova in Konstantin Yudin's film "Brave People". Nina found the role of the girl easy. Subsequently, the short, thin actress had the opportunity to play teenagers more than once — according to the directors, Grebeshkova was very convincing in such roles.
Cinema and family
During her studies, Nina Grebeshkova played several small film roles, including in Ivan Pyryev's film "The Test of Loyalty", where she worked on the set with Soviet film stars Sergei Romodanov and Marina Ladynina. In 1956, Grebenshchikova received one of the main roles — Komsomol members of Rai — in the film "restless spring", and in 1960, abruptly changing her role - in the war drama "Normandy — Neman". The young actress was predicted to be a great success. However, the meeting with her future husband, director Leonid Gaidai, who met Grebeshkova back at VGIK, became decisive for her.
They met at the very beginning of their studies at VGIK, where they entered almost simultaneously. At first, Nina didn't pay much attention to Gaidai. Bright and charming, she was popular among students and colleagues on the set, but she did not give hope to her boyfriends and did not think about marriage: a film career was much more important to her. Gaidai seemed to her to be a man from another planet: he was 8 years older than the girl, besides a veteran, and, as the actress later recalled, in the early years of her studies she was very shy of him and increasingly silent in his company, afraid to say something stupid. Everything changed when Gaidai invited his future wife to his student production of Balzac's Father Goriot, giving her the role of Goriot's daughter. Since then, they began to communicate regularly at rehearsals, then the young director began to accompany her home — and gradually managed to melt the heart of the unapproachable scoffer. In 1953, Gaidai proposed to her. The wedding was modest, the young people settled in a small apartment of Nina's parents. It was only a few years later that they were able to move into their own three-room apartment.
Karen Shakhnazarov, director, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, General Director of Mosfilm:
Nina Grebeshkova played one of the roles in my graduation film "Step wider, maestro!". I invited her to play the role of a doctor, and although it was a short meter — 20 minutes, she agreed. The piquancy of the situation turned out to be the fact that Leonid Gaidai was invited to defend his diplomas at the VGIK as chairman of the state Commission. I didn't know about it in advance, but when I found out, of course, I began to count on some kind of leniency. But I remember that Gaidai looked at the work very gloomily and even asked some tricky question. However, he gave me an A anyway. And then Nina Pavlovna called me at home and said, "He liked it very much, don't pay attention to his reaction, he just has such a character!" We became friends with her, despite the age difference, and this very warm relationship remained in the future. She was a very cheerful, light, charming, bright person. And, of course, a wonderful actress. At the same time, she had a very strong character and played a big role in Leonid Gaidai's success. She had a strong influence on him.
After the wedding, Nina had to take care of her husband: the talented director was completely helpless in everyday life, and all the worries — from cooking dietary oatmeal jelly for Gaidai, who suffered from a stomach ulcer, to repairing the family car — were taken over by the young wife. There was absolutely not enough time for major film roles, but Leonid Gaidai was happy to shoot his wife in small and episodic roles in almost every one of his films. She played a psychiatric hospital doctor in The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Semyon Gorbunkov's wife in The Diamond Hand, the wife of engineer Bruns in The Twelve Chairs, and Aunt Klava in Sportloto-82. Each of Gaidai's paintings became a Soviet blockbuster, and Nina Grebeshkova, who was able to create vivid and memorable images even in small roles, gained well—deserved popularity among viewers and directors, who regularly invited her to small roles, which she was so good at.
My whole life is in my profession
In 1993, after Leonid Gaidai's sudden death from pulmonary embolism, Nina Grebeshkova focused on helping her only daughter raise her granddaughter — and continued to work both in films and on stage. She became a real cinematic centenarian: already at the age of 70 she starred in episodes of the TV series "Detectives", "Kamenskaya", "Chronicles of Homicide", "Star of the Epoch". In 2013, Nina Grebeshkova played a cameo role in the film Legend No. 17, and in 2016, Nikolai Lebedev invited her to play the role of an elderly airplane passenger in The Crew. In 2020, having already celebrated her 90th birthday, Nina Grebeshkova starred in an episode of the TV series "Content Women".
The actress herself has never been shy about her unofficial title of "episode queen." According to her, playing a small role is no easier than playing a large-scale one, and it takes a lot of work and talent to keep such a role in the audience's memory.
In recent years, Nina Grebeshkova has rarely appeared in public, preferring to spend time at her cottage near Zvenigorod, gardening and cats, and rarely getting into the gossip columns. She appeared only at premieres related to her husband's name. On May 10, 2025, Nina Grebeshkova died at the age of 95. The cause of her death has not been officially announced.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
