In the first part of the legendary film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears,” cameos are performed by Russian cinema stars: Leonid Kharitonov, Innokenty Smoktunovsky and Tatyana Konyukhova. The crowd of fans gathered at the House of Cinema enthusiastically applauds when the famous actress appears.
The film by Vladimir Menshov was released in 1979. Many viewers, representatives of the younger generation, after watching the film, asked: “Who is Tatyana Konyukhova?”
The biography of this actress says that there were ups and downs in her life. Her name thundered throughout the country, and decades later it suddenly disappeared into obscurity.
Being at the peak of fame, actress Tatyana Konyukhova disappeared from the screens. There are many similar stories in cinema: today the artist’s photographs adorn the covers of magazines, millions of viewers strive to see films with his participation, and tomorrow his name is forgotten. However, Tatyana Konyukhova left cinema sometime of her own free will.
Childhood
There are no piquant details in the biography of actress Tatyana Konyukhova. Today she appears on screen from time to time, but usually in documentaries about famous artists. The star of the fifties is reluctant to talk about himself.
Tatyana Konyukhova was born in 1931 in Tashkent. My father was the director of a small factory. Mother is a housewife. Young Tanya organized concerts in the evenings, which delighted her neighbors. At school age, the girl began to dream of Moscow. She was fascinated by the chimes, and she was sure that when she grew up, she would certainly go to the capital and become an artist.
Debut
The future actress spent her adolescence in the Baltic states. After graduating from school, she came to Moscow and entered VGIK the first time.
As a second-year student, she was noticed by Alexander Rowe, a famous Soviet director. He needed a performer to play the main role in a film based on Gogol's story. This is how Tatyana Konyukhova’s acting career began.
Every actress dreams of such a debut. The main role in the film “May Night, or the Drowned Woman,” which was released in 1952, made the VGIK student famous throughout the country. At the same time, it was then that Tatyana Konyukhova’s first creative failure occurred - in Rowe’s film, her character was voiced by another actress.
Childhood and youth
The movie star’s parents are from Ukraine, and her grandmother is Polish. Tatyana Georgievna is the daughter of a man who worked in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, the director of a cotton factory, who served 3 years in Stalin’s dungeons on a false denunciation. In a conversation with Tatyana Ustinova, the author of the “My Hero” program on the TVC channel, she said that the smell of Vishnevsky’s ointment still reminds me of the disease that dad acquired in prison.
There were two more children in the family. Sister Roxana was raised by Tanya, since her mother was in prolonged depression after the death of her brother Igor.
In 1942, Konyukhov, who became an ardent anti-Stalinist, went to the front. The actress is sure that as a volunteer, “I saw too much in prison, I couldn’t stand it.”
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Tatyana Konyukhova in her youth
At the end of the war, Tanya moved from Tashkent to the Baltic states, where her father received a new assignment. She graduated from high school in the city of Liepaja.
From the age of five, the girl went to the movies, and then repeated what she saw on the screen in front of her grandmother. After watching the film “Circus”, Lyubov Orlova became an idol. In the yard they called Tatyana an artist, only the mother, who saw her daughter as a doctor, had doubts. The head of the family also did not approve of the choice, and advised him to study to become an accountant.
However, Konyukhova showed persistence, came to Moscow in 1949 and on her first try became a student at VGIK, Vasily Vanin’s workshop. Of the 800 applicants, besides Tatyana, 12 more were lucky.
At the peak of glory
However, the directors were satisfied with everything about Konyukhova: the acting, the voice, and the bright appearance. After the release of the film “May Night, or the Drowned Woman,” they received many offers. Over three years, the actress played in six films. The most popular was the film “Different Fates”. Tatyana Konyukhova received hundreds of letters from viewers. However, these messages came in the name of her heroine - Sonya Orlova.
“Different Fates” is a melodrama about love, betrayal, and the search for happiness. Already in the first months, the film was watched by more than thirty million people.
Unplayed roles
Tatyana Konyukhova became a public favorite. She was admired by the most authoritative critics. When director Kalatozov offered her the main role in the film “The Cranes Are Flying,” she refused - the actress was busy filming another film.
In 1967, Tatyana Samoilova, who played the main role in the film “The Cranes Are Flying,” went to the Cannes Festival, she became a world-class star. Colleagues told Konyukhova: “This could be your triumph.” But she never regretted the missed film work. Tatyana Georgievna still claims that this is not her role, and she would not have been able to play it as brilliantly as Samoilova.
Around the same time, aspiring director Eldar Ryazanov invited Konyukhova to play the main character in the film “Carnival Night”. The actress again refused and offered the still unknown Lyudmila Gurchenko instead.
“Konyukhova is coming!”
Remember, in the film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” one of the heroines, provincial girls, shouts in a voice full of delight: “Konyukhova! Konyukhova is coming...” The director very successfully conveyed the true image of the movie star of that time.
Tatyana Konyukhova was just that, a real star of Soviet cinema: her heroines were strong-willed Komsomol members, wise and romantic Soviet women. She has survived everything, including phenomenal popularity and almost complete oblivion.
Artist from the village
“Even now I wake up in horror because I have a dream: I need to go on stage, but I forgot the lyrics!” My heart is pounding in my throat, cold sweat, after a couple of minutes I begin to realize that, thank God, this is a dream.
In general, I am an artist by nature and a very passionate person. Very! I remember once on a ship on the open deck of the ship I sang for two hours in the cold piercing wind, drowning out all the noise of the engines... They told me: “Tanya, come on!..” Well, Tanya gave it... She sang the entire Soviet repertoire. This morning I woke up and there was no voice. I open my mouth, and there’s a fish’s silence instead of a voice. The Bolshoi Theater phoniologists fiddled with me for a month, and I was forbidden to utter even one sound.
In general, my body is very recoverable. Whatever happens, I recover quickly. Like a lizard.
Do you know when old age comes? When you start remembering your childhood more and more often...
I spent my childhood in Uzbekistan, and today I often remember these bright robes – in different colors in winter and summer – that the Uzbeks wore. They are simply amazing people: warm-hearted, completely unsophisticated, sharing the last flatbread.
I remember very well how I went to school in an Uzbek village, I was about five years old. The first of September was approaching, and my Uzbek neighbors came running to my Russian mother with the same request - to teach them how to tie bows on their daughters’ heads.
I decided to go to school on the sly from everyone else. She put a piece of brick in a small suitcase for weight and, barely waiting for dawn, she rushed out of the house. Mom went to milk the cow, and I followed her along the sidewalk towards the school.
People were walking towards me on their way to the factory for the morning shift, and they looked at me with complete bewilderment. I walked proudly, with my nose in the air from greatness. With a brick in a suitcase. That’s when I think the artist in me began to emerge. Then, at school, at countless matinees, not a single snowflake or princess could do without the participation of Tanka Konyukhova.
I remember my dad played the guitar, and I danced so hard that my mother shouted: “Yura, stop, her lips are blue!” I watched the film “Circus” twenty-one times and knew it by heart. Then, years later, I quoted it to Isaac Dunaevsky, he was shocked. This is all to say that you need to be born an artist. By the way, just like a journalist. I am convinced of this. You can, of course, teach a hare to play the drum. But is it necessary?
"The Dropout and the Repeater"
I was lucky: as a sophomore at VGIK, I was cast in the lead role in the film “May Night.” My first director is Alexander Rowe, a kind and very good guy. I am an inexperienced girl, I couldn’t even voice my role, I didn’t get into the close, the director decided that another artist would do the voice. After the hysteria, I wrote a statement addressed to the rector with a request to leave me for a second year. This is the only case in the history of VGIK, I swear!
The painting “May Night” became very popular, my portraits hung in the center of Moscow, and I, a bad artist, am a dropout and a second-year student...
In the third year, my express train to the cinema rushed without stopping, in a year I starred in three or four films. And so she lived without exhaling for thirteen years.
I can’t forgive myself for one thing - that I refused the offer to star in the leading role in the film “The Cranes Are Flying”, which director Kolotozov called. He later told me that it was the first time he had seen such an idiot who refused the main role. But I was invited to the film “Walking Through Torment”, I gave my word to the director Roshal that I would act in his film. True, he didn’t take me then. Believe me, life has passed since then, and I still can’t forgive him. I can not!
Although I am not envious of roles, Ryazanov invited me to “Carnival Night”. I told him about Lyusya Gurchenko, I said, our girl goes to VGIK, she’s just a brilliant artist, she plays the accordion and guitar superbly. Thin, artistic, this is what you need. I am very proud that he finally noticed Lucy!
After all, before Gurchenko, Ryazanov had already shot five hundred meters of film; he had a pretty girl playing, but it was an amateur performance. Pyryev stopped filming “Carnival Night”, he said: “Eric, what do you want to do in Hollywood? Shoot a Soviet picture..."
Believe me, there was some kind of demon sitting inside me, I didn’t want to be like anyone else. Everyone was looking for some new paths and moves.
Our course at VGIK turned out to be somewhat tragic: Isolda Izvitskaya became a drunkard. After her triumph in the film “The Forty-First,” film bosses began to drag her, a beauty, to all banquets as a table decoration. And female alcoholism is an insidious thing. When her liver was already falling apart, her husband left her and went to some barmaid.
Rufina Nifontova died a terrible death, practically boiled in boiling water in her own bathroom on the eve of the long-awaited premiere at the theater. She sat without roles for years. And people thought she was a star and a prima donna...
When I was young, I was always afraid of popularity and recognition. My famous flying gait comes from there. It was simply impossible to walk along the street: “Konyukhova, Konyukhova…” was rushing from all sides. The main thing for me was not to make eye contact with anyone. I’ve already seen broken acting destinies. Today you are on horseback, and tomorrow you are underfoot. Then, from one note in the newspaper, life could collapse.
Allochka Larionova's beauty was unearthly. After the painting “Anna on the Neck” she was not allowed to pass at all. It was impossible to leave the apartment. But: she said something wrong to someone, and then they threw such dirt at her in the press. As a result, her acting fate was unsuccessful. She didn’t play anything good. It was fortunate that Kolka Rybnikov loved her madly, so that at least in family life she was not just loved, but adored...
That’s why I was afraid to even meet the eyes of someone I didn’t know. I was recognizable then, and I was invited everywhere. I was burdened by this recognition and was constantly doing something to myself, changing my hairstyles, repainting my hair. One day I came to my parents’ house, I rang the doorbell, my mother opened it and asked: “Who do you want?...” I was already in tears from resentment. Mother! Don't you recognize me?
This is how I saved myself from fame.
“I ask for the floor. Tanya Konyukhova"
The time of my youth was very difficult. I remember all these plenums at which Bella Akhmadulina and Zhenya Yevtushenko were strangled. I sat in complete bewilderment from everything that was happening, I couldn’t stand it for Bella, I got into a fight with some apparatchik named Ilyichev. “You are strangling the nightingale,” I said to his face. Surprisingly, it passed...
I had a protest inside me against everything that was happening then at all these plenums. I read the poems of Akhmadulina and Yevtushenko and understood their genius. I didn’t want to join the party, but I was persuaded. I remember that at one of the plenums I even gave a fiery speech, which I ended with the words: let’s get to work, comrades! On the second day, Khrushchev repeated this phrase. It was! I'm not lying a word. The spirit of contradictions often tormented me; at all party meetings, when the gray heads of the masters of Soviet art often bowed down, I could easily write a note to the presidium: “I ask for the floor. Tanya Konyukhova."
I could easily object to the Secretary of the Central Committee that an artist is not a pencil in your hands, an artist is a firearm. She joined the party for one simple reason - because she believed that the word of a communist is more significant. That’s how it was then...
Yes, I was a member of the Lenin Prize committee and I am not ashamed of it for one simple reason. I have never been mean and petty.
Do established artists need to give birth to children? I married Master of Sports of the USSR Vladimir Kuznetsov when I was already thirty. He was a dazzling handsome man, almost two meters tall, with the figure of a Greek god. The women were terribly jealous of me. He is such a handsome man, for whom the female half of Moscow all looked back, and this was my third marriage...
They said all sorts of nasty things to us. To give birth or not to give birth—there has never been such a question in my life. I woke up: I was thirty years old and pregnant. She gave birth to a son. I never left filming or film expeditions, but no housekeeper ever crossed the threshold of my house. I managed to do everything. Of course, a child needs a mother, not an artist. My happiness is that my son always understood me. For other actresses, I don’t want to name their names, everything was more tragic in this regard. My son and I went through a lot; he had a very complex neurological disease. We won.
“Peter Todorovsky was in my captivity”
Are my novels? Of course there were. Director Pyotr Todorovsky was in my captivity.
He fell in love with me and brought my mother to Moscow to show me off.
- Petya, are you crazy? - I told him. I want to be an artist. And his mother left empty-handed. He was older than me, a front-line soldier, he, of course, wanted a family. I wasn't ready for this then.
She lost one of her lovers to her friend; she was so in love with him that she wanted to hang herself. They are happy to this day, and we are family friends. Nothing happens in life.
She resigned from her first husband only because he came to my filming without warning. Check me out. This humiliated me terribly. I opened the hotel room door and let him in. She opened all the cabinets and bedside tables and asked him to look everywhere. And she kicked him out. And I didn’t regret it for a single minute.
I also had an affair. Passionate, thoughtless, just somehow hormonal. He is a simple microphone man in the picture, and I am the main character.
I remember that he would just touch me with his finger and I would get an electric shock. I almost fainted.
The passion was simply insane, we attacked each other like wild animals. I got pregnant from him endlessly. Forgive me, Lord, for my abortions. I know that the sinner is terrible, but that happened too. And the fact that I gave birth to a child after that is a miracle. The passion ended in one second, I came from another hospital, and he was lying on the bed and eating delicious food. So calm. Zero attention to me. Everything is as cut off.
A few days later he went to see me off to the train, we were standing on the platform, I thought the train would speed up... That’s how it all ended.
When film expeditions returned to Mosfilm, there was no end to gossip and conversations about who had what kind of romance and with whom. I think my bones were washed often...
Oleg Strizhenov and I were also driven by passion. He introduced me to his parents as his wife. He was of stunning male beauty. But he had character - God forbid. And when I found out that his wife was pregnant, it sobered me up in a second. Then, it’s no secret that Oleg drank heavily. And in his drinking bouts I saw the terrible insides of a man. He left me, but I didn’t suffer from it. It was like deliverance. Just a stone lifted off my shoulders.
Why didn't I drink myself to death? God preserved. I also drank heavily and smoked like a locomotive.
“There are pennies in the wallet. There is horror in my soul"
Do you know what is the biggest thorn in my soul? A mixture of resentment and pain. That my beloved daddy committed suicide. The cancer was eating him up and he couldn't afford to become helpless. His last gesture was that he handed his mother a coat when she was getting ready to go to the store. She left, and he, the “Voroshilov shooter,” picked up a gun and...
Decades have passed since then, and it really hurts me that he did this. Until the end of my days there was a wound and a feeling of guilt. Incorrigible.
You know, a minute before I pulled the trigger, I felt that shot! We sat and talked with my husband. And suddenly, for no apparent reason, my heart stabbed, as if it had been pierced with a needle. I screamed in pain. Then it let go. A couple of hours later the phone rang and they said that my father had passed away. I then compared the time. Everything coincided down to the second.
We are often thoughtless and selfish towards the death of others. I remember one actor was being buried, and at the funeral everyone came to the same conclusion that he had lived a great life - seventy-eight years. He played in the academic theater. Well, he says, he’s grown old. One actress stood up and said: “Well, what nonsense are you talking about. He met spring only seventy-eight times...” Now I often remember her words. It is very difficult to part with all this. Happy spring and winter. With life. So beautiful and so short.
I don’t think about whether I will have the eighty-first spring or the eighty-second... I don’t want to think about it. I just live, that's all. I know that after this life there is no continuation. As scary as it may be, no. I was there. I experienced clinical death, and when the doctors brought me back from the other world, I said: “There’s nothing there...”
Tsiolkovsky said: “Do you think that clouds are moisture? These are the souls of people...” He was a genius. But I think I was wrong.
I am absolutely a Soviet person. And she remained so. I lived like everyone else and saw life as it is. Without embellishment and illusions. My father was repressed, and he came home from the camp half-dead, covered in scabs of eczema. But I have never lived in prison. And today they write as if we were all living in prison...
For our family, what we had was always enough. I became scared after the collapse of the Union; overnight I was left without a job with a meager pension. I remember standing in the store and frantically deciding whether I should buy one sausage or two. There are pennies in the wallet. There is horror in my soul. It feels like I was turned over several times. They began to kill our sense of dignity. Pride for the homeland, all patriotic feelings. These feelings were our natural existence, there was nothing artificial. My friend Lariska Luzhina saved me from that poverty. She came to visit, she and I cried our hearts out to each other. And Larisa invited me to teach acting to the children of rich parents. I agreed. I traveled on three minibuses, with transfers. I earned some money and was happy because I saw the happy eyes of the children.
I still teach, I get twelve thousand a month for it, I spend three thousand on travel a month, and my pension is the most ordinary. But I have enough. After 80 years, they say, a pension will be added, so we’ll live.
There are some shootings, some concerts, everything is fine. I'll live.
I always behaved freely, and there were no prohibitions for me. There were internal prohibitions: to offend a person, not to share with a person. Don't help a person in trouble. And in joy, I rejoiced for the man even more than he himself. I never counted how many telephones, apartments, vouchers to sanatoriums I got. And I don’t even remember. She could - she helped. That's all.
I was often attributed some kind of pride. They thought I was such a star. Once we came abroad with actor Ivan Lapikov, settled into a hotel, I quickly made sandwiches, boiled some tea, and invited him to my room. We drank a glass, got to talking, and he said to me: “Tanya, many people consider you an arrogant person...” This has always hurt me very much, the fact that I give the impression of being arrogant. Sometimes I withdraw into myself and become isolated. This condition happens. But arrogance - God forbid. I will never ruin the mood of the company. Never. Let everyone quarrel, but without me.
An artist is a firearm
An artist is not a profession, it is a nature. It's guts and character. I am one of the unrecognizable artists. The peak of popularity in youth does not count.
There are artists: he will play one role, and the whole country knows him. I have played a hundred roles, but today few people recognize me. It happens that you fly to some city, and at the airport those greeting you ask: “Has Zinaida Kiriyenko arrived?” or “Will Svetlana Svetlichnaya be there?”
This is a little offending. Then, after the speech, journalists run to me: “Tatyana Georgievna, give an interview, we didn’t see you right away.” I will never give it to you! You didn't see me at all. I wonder why you are not so curious. Narrow. Today you have the Internet, a sea of information, but nothing interests you. I came from an Uzbek village into this life and became a person.
Through communication, through self-education, I achieved everything. Well, maybe a little through talent. Labor is also very important.
At my age, with a temperature of 38, I spent a day of filming in a pool with cold water. But such a role was luxurious - she played an old psychopath who scuba dives. The material is simply amazing. How to refuse?! After that, she became terribly ill, it seemed as if her whole body was being chewed by rats, and she spent a month in the hospital. I barely made it out. My son didn't even scold me for it. Knows me too well. He just looked reproachfully, that’s all.
Even today I can hold any hall, any audience. I have always loved reading poetry and prose. I don’t like to waste time telling stories from an actor’s life, although I know a million of them; I don’t particularly like showing fragments from films and spending hours reminiscing about past filming. It's not work. Questions from the audience like: who was your husband? I never complained either. My bed is in the bedroom, not on the square...
Today my skin has become pierced, I hate it when artists sit in the hall. Or they stand in the wings and watch you work. I feel their energy like needles in my skin. That’s why I don’t want anniversary celebrations or parties. Why do I need needles in my skin?..
The upcoming anniversary doesn't scare me. I just don't think I'm ready for this. I want to remain in human memory as a living person, and not as an old woman who sits on the pedestal of half-forgotten roles and remembers something of her own. I don't want to be funny. And pathetic.
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Tatyana Konyukhova, born on November 12, 1931, was admitted to VGIK in 1949 among 15 lucky students. That year, 800 people entered the Institute of Cinematography. She has been acting in films since 1952, and her creative work includes more than a hundred roles. She played in the films “The Marriage of Balzaminov”, “Different Fates”, “Career of Dima Gorin”, “Oleko Dundich”. People's Artist of Russia. Her favorite poet is Marina Tsvetaeva, her favorite artist is Mark Bernes, and among actresses she gives the laurels of primacy to Tatyana Doronina. Teaches acting at the Moscow University of Culture and Arts.
Photo: RIA Novosti
Depression
It was not by chance that she scattered star roles - she was promised the role of Dasha in the film “Walking Through Torment”, which was even written about in the newspapers. But at the last moment, the director’s wife convinced him to change the actress, claiming that Konyukhova’s face “had become familiar.”
The first dark streak in the work of the young actress began. As you can understand from the biography of Tatyana Konyukhova, her personal life was also not going well. There was no one to support me in difficult times. Having learned that the role of Daria in the book based on the novel by Alexei Tolstoy would be played by another actress, Konyukhova fell into a prolonged depression.
“I got rid of the child”: Tatyana Konyukhova spoke about her personal tragedy
People's Artist of the RSFSR Tatyana Konyukhova
For more than 50 years, he has been delighting viewers with his works. The fame of the star of the film “Different Fates” was so great that Vladimir Menshov invited her to play herself in the film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears.” At the beginning of the first episode, Katerina and Lyudmila watch with delight as Innokenty Smoktunovsky and Tatyana Konyukhova take part in the Moscow film festival.
The 86-year-old actress became a guest of Boris Korchevnikov’s program “The Fate of a Man” and talked about her difficult fate, which is unlike the glossy footage of films.
For the first time, Tatyana married VGIK student Valery Karen . The artist noted that she did not receive in marriage the love and passion necessary for a happy family life. Just 10 days after the wedding, Konyukhova undoubtedly filed for divorce: “I didn’t have enough passions. I wanted them to be like Romeo and Juliet,” recalls the actress.
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Today, November 12, Tatyana Georgievna Konyukhova (86 years old) celebrates her birthday. She was born in Tashkent. Let’s remember the films with her participation: “Marina’s Fate”, “Replacement Player”, “Good Morning”, “Different Fates”, “Above Tissa”, “Dima Gorin’s Career”, “Marriage Loan” and others. We wish her health and success. #birthday #actress #film actress #USSR #Soviet Union #Tatyana Konyukhova #different destinies #over Tissa #career for Gorina #actress #USSR
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Roles of Tatyana Konyukhova in films
Her second marriage to sound engineer Boris Vengerovsky, Konyukhova’s friends considered her a fatal mistake: “Those around me started nagging me, saying: “What are you, Tanka?!” You can’t find a real man for yourself.” And Vengerovsky was a master of his craft, as I believed. But he was lazy, I dragged the whole family. I did everything, furnished the apartment, bought things.
I was the breadwinner. He didn’t want children, yes, and where are you going? Everything was very strict with us back then. I worked in two or three films in parallel, like a draft horse, from 6 am to 12 midnight,” recalls Tatyana Georgievna.
While filming one of the films, the actress became ill. Doctors reported that she was pregnant. The doctors were literally horrified by her condition, discovering severe fatigue. Boris Vengerovsky, even then, did not take responsibility for providing for the family, and Tatyana decided to have an abortion: “He was not against it, but I did not think about my health and future. He knew that I got rid of the child. I had no strength at all, not even for family relationships. Everything went out inside me, only God knows how I survived,” admitted Konyukhova.
Tatyana Konyukhova and Leonid Bykov. Still from the program
Not having time to recover from the abortion, the actress experienced a severe professional shock. Director Georgy Roshal promised Tatyana the main role in the film “Walking Through Torment.” The actress refused other interesting offers for six months and waited for a call to film, but Nina Veselovskaya got the role. “I kept my word, he didn’t remove me from the role, he started casting another actress.
I almost went crazy, I had some kind of tic. I stopped eating, I couldn’t even swallow. I lay in bed and sobbed from this betrayal,” said Konyukhova, who experienced severe depression.
After her marriage to Vengerovsky, Tatyana no longer dreamed of personal happiness. However, the USSR champion in javelin throwing Vladimir Kuznetsov managed to win her heart. In this marriage, the actress gave birth to a son, Sergei, who gave her a granddaughter, Olga. “For 27 years we were in perfect harmony. He went through the blockade, sport also takes away a large part of his health, but he never looked after his well-being,” Tatyana noted bitterly. In 1986, her husband died suddenly of cancer before reaching the age of 56. Since then, Konyukhova has lived in the memory of her beloved husband.
Tatyana Konyukhova with her husband Vladimir Kuznetsov. Still from the program
On this topic: “A gypsy told me my husband”: the star of the film “Different Fates” spoke about her personal life
Photo: Persona Stars, @ivan.sadovnikov
“I don’t forgive betrayal!”
The film “Oleko Dundich” became her salvation. Especially for Konyukhova, Leonid Lukov wrote a heroine into the script, whom he named Dasha.
And Roshal, the director of the film “Walking Through Torment,” subsequently offered the actress roles in his films more than once. But she refused. And once she said: “Even if I don’t have any work at all, I will never agree to act with you. You betrayed me, but I don’t forgive betrayal.”
Oleg Strizhenov
Konyukhova’s life has improved. She starred in films again, and, of course, there was no end to the fans. For some time, the main handsome man of the fifties, Oleg Strizhenov, courted the actress. It was a short-term romance. Strizhenov was married.
He wanted to leave the family, proposed to her, but she refused. Tatyana Konyukhova never built her personal life on the misfortune of others.
She did not change her principles even in her youth. On the set of the film “Marina’s Fate,” Konyukhova met the young actor Leonid Bykov. She was 22 years old. He is 25. A modest, pleasant guy looked at the rising star as if he were a deity. Konyukhova stopped all communication with Bykov after she saw his wife, who was expecting a child at that time.
Third marriage
Gradually, the relationship with Vengerovsky went wrong - the young, ambitious wife turned out to be very demanding. And the app as a husband lying on the couch after work annoyed her. But the beauty did not allow herself too much, her upbringing and self-esteem did not allow the disappointed woman to take other people’s men into account - she was married, after all!
An incident changed everything - while filming in Sochi, Konyukhova met Vladimir Kuznetsov, a multiple national champion in javelin throwing.
With husband Vladimir Kuznetsov
According to the artist, when she first saw her future husband, she was speechless from his courageous beauty and was completely at a loss. And this is a woman whose favor many stars of Soviet cinema sought!
Kuznetsov was very persistent, but without rudeness, he courted for a long time and in an ornate manner. Moreover, at the first meeting he introduced himself as an ordinary sportsman. Therefore, it was impossible to suspect him of promiscuity. In addition, it turned out that his old friend worked in the same film crew with the artist, which brought this stunningly beautiful couple together - the athlete had long been begging his friend to introduce them.
Tatyana Konyukhova in her youth
After working in Crimea, the actress returned home to the Vengerovskys’ apartment with a strange feeling of guilt, unusual for her. On the one hand, there is a handsome man who wants to do something important in life. On the other hand, a calm husband, always happy with everything and not loving to work hard. I had to dramatically change my personal life and biography - Tatyana Konyukhova’s straightforward character did not allow her to hide, and the actress admitted to Boris that she was leaving.
Vladimir Kuznetsov
By the time the film “Dima Gorin’s Career” was released, Konyukhova was married for the third time. The first two husbands were involved in cinema and believed that children were only an obstacle to their career. Athlete Vladimir Kuznetsov, the third husband of the actress, really wanted a son. Tatyana Konyukhova also dreamed of a quiet family life.
Vladimir Kuznetsov was an athlete, a four-time Olympic champion. They met in Sochi, and their first meeting was accidental. They were thirty years old. Love flared up instantly. Nevertheless, Kuznetsov had a long time to win the hand of the famous actress.
Konyukhova does not like to remember her personal life before meeting her third and last husband. The first marriage lasted only ten days. The second is three years. The actress found happiness only with the father of her son.
Still, Konyukhova and Kuznetsov quarreled quite often and loudly. In 1968, the actress played in the film “And I’m Going Home,” the thesis work of aspiring director Nikita Mikhalkov. During the filming of the film, a scandal occurred that almost led to divorce. Where Tatyana Konyukhova appeared, many of her fans immediately appeared. And the actress’s husband, Vladimir Kuznetsova, was very jealous.
Second marriage
The actress re-signed with sound engineer Boris Vengerovsky. They lived with their husband’s mother, an elderly and kind busy woman who adored both her son and his beautiful wife. They didn’t even think about children at that time - Boris was completely spoiled at home by his caring parent, and his wife dreamed only of a career. By that time, the fame of the talented artist had crossed the boundaries of Mosfilm and directors from other film studios were hunting for her.
Tatyana Konyukhova did not really like the proposed roles of unbending Komsomol members and dreamed of revealing herself as a dramatic actress, which could not but affect her personal life and biography. After the failure with “Walking Through Torment,” it took her a long time to come to her senses and decided to get a job in the theater.
Her debut at the Maly Academic Academy was a triumph - she was noticed and film critics began to praise her. However, at that time employees were not allowed to work in cinema. Without thinking twice, Konyukhova transferred to the Film Actor Theater and served there for more than 30 years, acting in many films along the way.
"Moscow does not believe in tears"
Family came first for Tatyana Konyukhova. For the sake of her son and husband, she refused many roles. In the seventies, the actress played in such films as “It’s Not Evening Yet,” “Chronicle of the Night,” and “The Secret of the Ancestors.” But these were minor roles. Many have forgotten about her. No one shouted after her anymore: “Oh, Konyukhova!”
And suddenly Vladimir Menshov received an offer to star in his film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears.” The director managed to persuade the actress to appear in his film for just a few seconds.
The star of the fifties flashed on the screen in a luxurious fox stole. There were rumors that it was given to the actress during filming. In reality, the item belonged to Konyukhova. It was a gift from my husband. The Olympic champion presented the stole to his wife when she gave birth to his son.
Tatyana Konyukhova lived with Kuznetsov for more than a quarter of a century. She did not regret the unplayed roles. She preferred spending time with her son and husband. Kuznetsov coached the Soviet national team, he provided for his family. Behind him, the actress felt like behind a stone wall.
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The fact is that Vengerovsky really wanted children, and Konyukhova, whose career was taking off at that time, postponed their appearance until later.
But it was not only Tatyana Konyukhova’s children who were not born in that marriage that became the reason for the gradual cooling of relations between the spouses - the actress, busy day and night at work, was almost never at home, and this increasingly distanced her from Boris.
“I developed a desire to get a divorce because of a misunderstanding that bordered on indifference. And it all started bright and good. Although it’s difficult for me to say now whether it was love or just crazy passion,” said the actress.
Acquaintance with track and field athlete Vladimir Kuznetsov during a creative business trip to Sochi became significant in the actress’s personal life and completely changed it.
In the photo: Tatyana Konyukhova and Vladimir Kuznetsov
Konyukhova, whom he had previously only seen on the screen, also made an indelible impression on Kuznetsov, and he decided to be with her at all costs. Only later did Tatyana find out that her new acquaintance was a famous athlete, a three-time national champion, and this elevated her new acquaintance even more in her eyes.
After returning to Moscow, Konyukhova heard from Vladimir an offer to become his wife. She immediately explained to her husband and went to Kuznetsov.
In the photo: Tatyana Konyukhova with her son
Vladimir became a wonderful husband, and the question of the appearance of Tatyana Konyukhova’s children in her new family was no longer raised - the actress gave birth to a son, Sergei, for whom Kuznetsov became the best dad in the world.
After the birth of the child, Vladimir left big sports to spend more time at home, became a coach, and later went into science.
Unfortunately, Tatyana Konyukhova’s third husband passed away very early - he died at fifty-five years old, and this became a huge tragedy for the actress.
“From that moment on, my life was divided into two parts - before and after his death. For a long time I couldn’t come to my senses, I cried constantly, I was depressed, it seemed that I would never be able to get back on my feet,” recalls Tatyana Georgievna.
She never married again, and her closest people remain her son Sergei and granddaughter Olya.
With granddaughter Olga
Death of husband
In 1986, Vladimir Kuznetsov turned 55 years old. After her birthday, the actress went to another city for several days, and when she returned, her husband had an attack. At the hospital, the doctor told the actress that her husband had experienced clinical death. And that he is terminally ill. It was stage four cancer.
Vladimir Kuznetsov died on August 29, 1986. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.
After the death of her beloved husband, Tatyana Konyukhova lost the meaning of life. For some time she seemed to be in prostration. In the late eighties, she played several episodic roles in films, but it is unlikely that even the most devoted fans of her talent remember them today. The actress never married again.
90s
In 1995, 64-year-old Konyukhova starred in the film “A Quiet Angel Flew By...”. The next time she appeared on screen was only seven years later.
The 90s became a difficult period in the life of Tatyana Konyukhova, as well as in the lives of many actors. The son and daughter-in-law were students. The actress gave birth to a granddaughter. All worries about the family fell on the shoulders of the woman, who for 25 years relied on her reliable husband for everything.
Tatyana Konyukhova got a job at the Folk Art Center, where she worked with children for about ten years. Another forgotten star of Russian cinema worked in the same institution at that time - Larisa Luzhina, with whom the heroine of this article has a strong friendship.
Tatyana Konyukhova today
The actress teaches at the University of Culture. She has managed to graduate more than one course and treats her students as if they were her own children. Tatyana Georgievna teaches acting five times a week, and also plays in the theater.
Her relationship with her only son, Foreign Ministry employee Sergei Kuznetsov, is complicated. The fault, as the actress admits, is her explosive character. Tatyana Georgievna has a very warm relationship with her beloved granddaughter, Olga Vasilyeva. True, Sergei Kuznetsov’s daughter lives in Indonesia and rarely visits Moscow. Olga looks very similar to her grandmother, but, like her father, she did not acquire an acting profession.
In the 2000s, Tatyana Konyukhova starred in 12 films. Among them: “Nostalgia for the Future”, “Village”, “Long-Awaited Love”, “The Princess and the Beggar Woman”. From time to time he performs his own concert program - reading poetry by Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova. On November 12, 2020, the legend of Soviet cinema turns 87 years old.
Filmography
- 1951 - Sports Honor - Tony's girlfriend
(uncredited) - 1952 - May Night, or the Drowned Woman - Ganna
- 1953 - Marina's fate - Galya
- 1954 - Reserve player - Valya Oleshko
- 1955 - Volnitsa - Anfisa, runaway merchant's wife
- 1955 - Good morning - Katya Golovan
- 1956 - Different destinies - Sonya Orlova
- 1956 - First joys - Liza Meshkova
- 1957 - Shine, my star - Nelya
- 1957 - Extraordinary Summer - Liza Meshkova
- 1958 - Above Tisza - Theresia Simak
- 1958 - Oleko Dundich - Dasha, Red Army soldier
- 1959 - Towards the Dawn - Varvara Nikolaevna Sapozhkova
- 1959 - Clubfooted Friend - Valentina
- 1959 - The sun shines for everyone - Tasya, wife of N. Savelyev
- 1960 - Ershov Brothers
- 1960 - Summer vacation time - Anna Ilyinichna Gorelova
- 1961 - Career of Dima Gorin - Galya Berezka
- 1962 - Beat the drum! — Arsenyeva
- 1962 - How I was independent - Elena Zhuravleva
- 1963 - The sky above the desert - geologist Varya
- 1963 - You are not alone - Ksenia Koltsova
- 1964 - Marriage of Balzaminov - Khimka
- 1964 - Executed at dawn... - Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova
- 1966 - Moonlight Nights - Irina
- 1966 - No and Yes - Zinaida Pavlovna
- 1967 - Stars and Soldiers - Elizabeth
- 1968 - The Mysterious Monk - Zinaida Pavlovna
- 1968 - And I’m leaving home - Mikhalych’s wife
- 1970 - Steep Horizon - Anna
- 1970 - One of us is an NKVD employee
- 1972 - The Secret of the Ancestors - Lyubov Igorevna
- 1972 - Chronicle of the Night - Liz Stewart
- 1974 - It’s not evening yet - Lyubov Petrovna
- 1976 - Just the two of us - Miusova
- 1979 - Moscow doesn’t believe in tears - Konyukhova
(cameo) - 1979 - With love in half - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Makeeva
- 1980 - Second birth - Marya Vasilievna
- 1980 - Deputy Hour - party worker
- 1981 - Portrait of the artist’s wife - Varya Nikitenko
- 1983 - Unexpectedly - neighbor
- 1984 - Radunitsa - Olga
- 1985 - Snipers - Nikiforova
- 1986 - Personal interest - Kuntsevich’s wife
- 1986 - They sat on the golden porch - Queen
- 1987 - Loan for marriage - Valentina
- 1988 - Puppy - Alexandra Vladimirovna
- 1990 - Everything is ahead - Lyuba’s mother
- 1995 - A quiet angel flew by...
- 2002 - Lotus Strike 2
- 2005 - Dasha Vasilyeva. Private investigation lover - 4 Ugly duckling's hobbies - actress
- 2006 - The General’s last order - NORA - the general’s wife
- 2006 - Emergency call - Anna Nikolaevskaya
- 2007 - Nostalgia for the future - Anastasia’s grandmother
- 2008 - Long-awaited love - grandmother Evgenia Vasilievna
- 2008 - Village - Daria
- 2008 - The Sleeper and the Beauty - Maria Aleksevna
- 2008 - Three from Carronade Square - grandmother Vera Anatolyevna
- 2009 - The Princess and the Beggar Woman - Olga Teodorovna
- 2010 - Goldfish in the city N - Aunt Katya
- 2011 - Preserved by fate - Veronica Vitoldovna Koshinskaya
