Biography
Kira Alexandrovna is a Leningrader, she was born in July of thirty-one, and speaks of her childhood as the happiest time until the war began. She suffered the most difficult years of the siege, which the actress still remembers with a shudder.
In the photo: Kira Alexandrovna as a child with her mother
Although she was still a child, Kira Kreylis-Petrova will never forget how hungry and scary it was in besieged Leningrad, but even then she did not lose her sense of humor and tried to make the kids laugh when, together with their mothers, they waited out the bombing in a bomb shelter.
“I felt like an actress since I was four or five years old. I constantly made everyone laugh, and I even remember during the blockade - I was in third grade - I smeared soot under my nose on something like a small mustache, combed my hair like Hitler and began to imitate him. And everyone started laughing and forgot about these explosions, because of which the school could have collapsed right on us,” recalls the actress.
She has always been an artistic, creative person, and for this Kira Alexandrovna is grateful to her mother, who tried to give her daughters a good upbringing and took them to theaters and museums.
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As a child, she seriously studied violin, and her teacher, the famous teacher Magda Landau, found Kira very talented and predicted a great musical future.
In the photo: Kira Kreylis-Petrova
However, the defining profession in Kreylis-Petrova’s biography was the acting profession, which, according to Kira Alexandrovna, she fell into almost by accident.
Kira Kreylis-Petrova in her youth
After school, she planned to enter the conservatory, but became a student at the Moscow Art Theater. When teachers from the Studio School came to her hometown, Kira impressed the committee members with her natural sense of humor and ability to make anyone laugh, and she was accepted.
In her youth, she had to live in a dormitory, but in order to study, she endured terrible conditions. After graduating from university, despite an invitation to the Soviet Army Theater, Kira Alexandrovna returned to Leningrad, but she was unable to find work in her hometown. And then the aspiring actress wrote a letter to the Sakhalin Drama Theater and received a reply with an invitation.
Kira went to her new place of work with a graduate of the Leningrad Theater Institute, Yakov Kreilis, who soon became part of her personal life. When she and her husband found themselves in Leningrad again, Kira Alexandrovna got a job at the Variety Theater and the Maly Drama Theater, and in sixty-three she was invited to the Leningrad Theater of Young Spectators, with which the actress’s creative biography was connected for seventeen years, during which she appeared on scene in the form of various animals and fairy-tale characters.
In the eightieth year, Kira Alexandrovna moved to the Theater. Pushkin - she then turned fifty, and playing on the stage of the Youth Theater was no longer her age. The actress served at the Alexandrinsky Theater for thirty-two years, and retired only in 2012, at the age of eighty-one.
The actress’s creative biography has been associated with cinema since 1957, when she starred in the comedy “The Street is Full of Surprises” in the tiny role of a passerby. Then there was the film “Quarrel in Lukashi”, and the next film had to wait ten long years - in 1969, Kira Kreylis-Petrova starred in the film “Mom Got Married”.
In seventy-four, Kreilis-Petrova was invited to the film “Ksenia, Fyodor’s Beloved Wife,” and also for a cameo role. The actress’s filmography includes more than three dozen films, in which Kira Alexandrovna appeared in small roles, but all of them were so expressive and memorable that they never went unnoticed.
No matter how long Kreylis-Petrova appeared on camera, her comic image always turned out to be complete and complete.
She was gladly invited to TV series - Kira Alexandrovna can be seen in “Streets of Broken Lanterns”, “Secrets of the Investigation”, “Women’s Logic” and many others. The actress devoted a lot of time to voice acting - her voice can be heard in the cartoons of the Pilot studio in the Mountain of Gems series.
Kira Kreylis-Petrova: “You can make candy out of any role!”
My heroine today is a magnificent St. Petersburg actress, Honored Artist of Russia Kira Kreylis-Petrova . One director, who admired her performance in the enterprise “Doves,” exclaimed in front of me: “It’s a miracle how good she is!” Just Yanshin in a skirt! This is someone interesting to work with..."
As soon as they didn’t call her! And a pearl of laughter. And an unsurpassed master of the episode. And a virtuoso performer of everyday roles. And the brightest master of the grotesque, clownery, eccentricity. And modern Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya. They compared her with her favorite actress Faina Ranevskaya...
“But “Yanshin in a skirt,” laughs Kira Kreylis-Petrova, “no one has ever called it.” But “Tolubeev in a Skirt” - yes, it happened.
Kira Kreylis-Petrova is an actress of the famous Alexandrinka. Today she has a kind of anniversary: 25 years of work on this stage.
— I got there by accident. At that time she worked at the Youth Theater. One day I was walking with a friend past the Pushkin Theater, and he worked there and said to me: “Let’s go in for a minute!” He needed to take something. We passed by the office of Igor Gorbachev, the theater’s chief director, and a friend nudged me: “Come in!” I walk in and hear: “Oh, what a time I came!” Wonderful. Do you want to join us?
It turns out that Gorbachev knew me. And good luck happened after bad luck. Their actress died, they found a suitable role for me... This was in 1980. I remember how Gorbachev said: “It’s time for you to move to winter quarters.” They say, stop hanging out at the dacha, meaning the Youth Theater, youth, youth are over, we need to choose a permanent theater. Right. Frankly speaking, Youth Theater is not my theater. I would like to work in Satire or Comedy.
- You weren’t invited?
- No. I showed myself to Akimov and others. But no way... - admits Kira Kreylis-Petrova. — There was no need for a character actress! What should I do? And the Korogodsky Youth Theater, may the kingdom of heaven be upon him, took me. And everyone told him: “Why are you taking her?” I was still pregnant. “She won’t be pregnant forever,” said Zinovy Yakovlevich. I gave 17 years to this theater. I didn't have many good roles there. But I worked with pleasure, I really loved everything I did. I even had to play owls and crows, croak and everything else I played. I don't think it's a waste of time. Naturally, if I had immediately entered a good big theater, now my career would have developed differently, it would have been more stable. Still, there would be big, interesting roles, and a different audience. And children are a complex audience, although more sincere...
— I saw Fokin’s play “The Inspector General” and was amazed at this: Honored Artist of Russia Kreilis-Petrova is busy in such a crowd!
- So what! I play this role with great pleasure and don’t even consider it an extra. I had several wonderful roles in the theater that I loved very much, although they were small: Malanya in the play “It’s not all Maslenitsa for the cat”, Agrafena Kondratievna in “Our people - let’s be numbered!”, Eremeevna in “Undergrowth”... Fominichny and Kuzminichny - here are all my roles. (Laughs.) I also play the servant Faina in “Cap with Bells.” I love my matchmaker in The Marriage. I play her, by the way, in the “Comedian’s Shelter” theater - this is a completely different performance, different director, different actors...
I love all my roles! The episode also needs to be played. A good episode will go down in history. I don’t need a big, but boring, meaningless role. You can make candy out of anything. In our Youth Theater there was the famous play “Mess-Mend”. I had a tiny role there as a stenographer. Without words! But I found such a move that there was simply a collapse in the hall! Thirty years have passed, and they still tell me that they remember me in this role of a frantic communist. Made history. I remember at the Pushkin Theater I had the role of a black journalist in the crowd. For one second on stage (not a word!) I smeared myself all over with black paint - both my face and my hands... What a fool! Of course, this is already called “peek-a-boo”, “regards”... (Laughs.) This is a crowd scene. Who will pay attention to you? Perhaps no one will notice. You came out for a second and that’s it! And then wash off the makeup for an hour...
But always, in any form, I loved my profession. They say that after death there is some other life. I pray to God for only one thing: that I be born an artist. So that God will give me talent again and so that I can work in the theater. And if I also had a choice (smiles), I would like to be... a singer. I love music madly.
(In the life of Kira Kreylis-Petrova there is another theater - a musical comedy. “I adore my, again small, role in the play “Turkey Destiny”, where I sing and dance...” And I will give here another comparison of critics: Kira Kreylis -Petrova and the famous Bogdanova-Chesnokova, leading artist of the operetta theater...)
— Kira Alexandrovna, now in the play “Moscow - Petushki” (theater “Comedian’s Shelter”) you played the violin...
— I studied as a child (at the age of six my mother enrolled me in the violin), I already played complex things, and almost entered the conservatory. There were successes, they hoped for me, I had a wonderful teacher. The violin requires enormous dedication: you have to practice for hours. But that's not why I left her. Once I was walking along Nevsky Prospect and accidentally saw an advertisement for recruitment to the theater. And she did. I really wanted to be an artist! She loved to make everyone laugh and make everyone laugh. There was a story about admission, I’ve told it more than once.
The admissions committee of the Moscow Art Theater School came to us in Leningrad. I went to take my exams. Like all applicants, I eavesdropped at the door as others read. And then the teacher was walking, he saw, everyone ran away, but I stayed. He kicked me out: “Get out, we don’t need such undisciplined students.” And a few days later my mother simply forced me to go again. “You haven’t even read it, and you’ve already given up. How can you?". A friend took me by the hand and dragged me. And all the rounds have already passed, the last one is coming. And there were five boys and five girls left - gorgeous! From all over Leningrad. Can you imagine what a set it is?! Everything has already been decided, I have no chance... But I was graciously allowed to enter. “What will you read? - they ask me. - The fable “The Crow and the Fox.” The commission, of course, was upset. I got angry and read so much that the teachers laughed until they dropped!
- Did someone prepare you?
- Nobody. Mom was just checking the text.
As a result, out of all the girls, I was the only one chosen. One of all Leningrad! The rest were assigned to take the test again - in Moscow. Everyone is upset. Nobody understood why they took me. It was like they were looking at some kind of miracle. It was then that a telegram went to Moscow: “We are bringing the pearl of laughter.”
And about Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya... When, after college, I showed up in Leningrad to Igor Vladimirov, he told me: “In 30 years, I predict this to you, you will be the second Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya, then come.”
— Do they recognize you on the street, Kira Alexandrovna?
“I was once at the market with a friend, also an elderly woman. We choose pepper with it. The seller, from “persons of Caucasian nationality,” hurried us: “Well, grandmothers, let’s hurry up!” And then the saleswoman flies up shouting: “What are you doing? Do you know who you're talking to? "Grandmothers"! This is an artist! I felt so funny. Well, am I not a grandmother? He immediately: “Oh, give me an autograph!” “On the pepper,” I say, “I’ll write for you.”
So, why am I telling this? That saleswoman said that she remembered me from the film “In Love by My Own Will.” Damn it! Crazy long ago. And I starred in a small episode there. She is a simple woman, not a theatergoer obviously, but she remembers... That’s what amazed me. I was very pleased: since she noticed such a small role, it means that there was something there after all... You could say that this role was a milestone for me, although at the time it seemed to me: will you think about what to play there? The director was very good - Mikaelyan...
Just the other day I was walking along Nevsky, and then the boys: “Oh, grandma, you were in a movie?!” Listen (one says to the other), this is the first time I’ve seen her alive!”
— What commercials did you star in?
- Condoms.
- Really?!
- I swear! I go to bed. And suddenly I hear some noise, some fuss. It was my grandson who brought the young lady, and they were frantically looking for condoms in the dark. I, such a wise grandmother, get up, go to the bedside table and say: “Here they lie.” And I go to bed... That's it. After that, the boys on the street shouted after me: “Oh-oh-oh, condoms!” It was a long time ago, and this is a purely financial issue.
— You’ve probably been pestered all your life with questions about your unusual surname?
- Yes. I was Petrova, and my husband was Kreylis. I didn’t want to offend him, so I took his last name. When we got married on Sakhalin, we went to the police station, the policeman said to me: “Why is it that you have a double last name? We only have repeat offenders, criminals with such names.” "Why? - I say. “And Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya?” But he didn’t understand who I was talking about.
— Surely you have a lot of funny stories associated with such a complex surname?
- Yeah... Recently I was buying watch batteries at the market. I don’t understand anything about them! Some man prompts: “Take these.” And suddenly his wife screams: “Who are you talking to? This is an artist! Now I remember her last name... Cruiser-Petrova? Prelest-Petrova? (Laughs).
“Cruiser”... There was such an artist, Rem Lebedev, who worked in our theater. When he was being buried, some old woman came up to me in the cemetery and asked: “What Lebedev is being buried? The one who played the horse? He was often confused with Evgeny Lebedev... Rem always sang to me: “What are you dreaming about, “Cruiser-Petrova?”
In general, they confused my last name and rearranged it as they wanted. That’s why in the theater I’m just Petrova, and in the cinema I’m Kreylis-Petrova. My husband died three years ago (we lived together for 45 years). I really miss him. After his death, they say, he became my guardian angel. I immediately had a lot of work. It saves me from boredom. In her old age she found herself needed, the old woman matured. (Laughs.)
My lack of employment in my native theater is more than compensated by my work in the enterprise. God sent me the producer of “Theater House” Natasha Kolesnik, who took me in the play “Love is not a potato, you can’t throw it out the window...”. We travel with him all over Russia, and he is a huge success everywhere. And when I don’t play my grandmother, I miss her as if she were a living person. I’m also busy with Doves. There was a difficult, “bloody” introduction to this performance for the role of an old American prostitute - after Svetlana Kryuchkova. She did it famously and brilliantly. “My” author is Ostrovsky, my heroines are Russian grandmothers. But I like such contrasting roles. Playing the same role from performance to performance is, of course, easier. You can gather up your “old hats” and bravely go on stage, but I like to find the grain of the role, try to play another person. And in the theater, and in cinema, even in episodic episodes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
Svetlana MAZUROVA
Rossiyskaya Gazeta (St. Petersburg), 02/11/2005
photo: Vladimir Bertov
