Ladynina, Marina

Born June 11 (24), 1908, in Achinsk, now in Krasnoiarsk Krai. Soviet Russian motion-picture actress; People’s Artist of the USSR (1950).

Ladynina was a rural schoolteacher. In 1933 she graduated from the State Institute of Theatrical Art and acted with the Moscow Art Theater through 1935, when she made her screen debut in Enemy Paths as Linka.

Ladynina created a number of lyrical portraits of contemporary young women, primarily in the bright colorful musical comedies of I. A. Pyr’ev. Her heroines are vivacious, kind, and utterly faithful to the homeland. Her roles include Marinka in The Rich Bride (1938), Mar’iana Bazhan in Tractor Drivers (1939), Glasha in Swineherd and Shepherd (They Met in Moscow, 1941), Natasha in Secretary of the District Party Committee (1942), Varia in At Six PM After the War (1944), Natasha in The Legend of the Siberian Land (1948), and Peresvetova in The Kuban Cossacks (1950).

Ladynina received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941, 1942, 1946, 1948, and 1951. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.