Sperantova, Valentina Aleksandrovna

Born Feb. 11 (24), 1904, in Zaraisk; died Jan. 6, 1976, in Moscow. Soviet Russian actress. People’s Artist of the USSR (1970). Member of the CPSU from 1953.

In 1925, after graduating from the A. V. Lunacharskii Theatrical Technicum, Sperantova joined the company of the First State Pedagogical Theater (later the State Central Young People’s Theater). In 1944 she became an actress at the Central Children’s Theater, where she often performed the roles of teenagers. Sper-antova expressed courage, self-reliance, and a firm refusal to accept injustice as Egorka in Afinogenov’s The Black Steep Bank, Akhmet in Kron’s Rifle No. 492116, and Gerda and Kay in Shvarts’ The Snow Queen. In the mid-1950’s she began playing character roles, for example, Kukushkina in Ostrovskii’s A Profitable Post, Klavdiia Vasil’evna in Rozov’s In Search of Happiness, and Grandmother in Aleksin’s Return Address. She also appeared on radio and television and in films.

Sperantova was awarded the N. K. Krupskaia State Prize of the RSFSR (1974), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.