Izolda Izvitskaya (1932 – 1971) — film actress
In the chemists' city of Dzerzhinsk, on Zhukovsky Lane, a modest memorial plaque hangs on one of the standard apartment buildings: "The childhood and youth of the celebrated film actress Izolda Izvitskaya were spent in this house." From time to time a small bouquet of flowers appears on the entrance door — her fellow townspeople have not forgotten her and honor the memory of their famous compatriot, who rose so swiftly to the heights of cinema and left it so early. Fate had been preparing an extraordinary future for her from the very moment of her birth — she even had an exotic name. Her cultured parents — schoolteacher Mariya Stepanovna and engineer Vasily Gerasimovich — named their daughter after the heroine of the epic "Tristan and Isolde." Such a name carried great expectations — Iza Izvitskaya, a pupil at Dzerzhinsk School No. 2, not only studied well but also took an active part in school amateur performances. "Everyone says I read well and perform well in amateur shows. But if only it would come in handy someday! Oh, I'm such a fool. I don't even dare to dream of it. How could it be — me, of all people, suddenly an actress?!" the schoolgirl wrote in her diary. But why not? Especially with such a beautiful and heroic name! And her favorite actresses — Lyubov Orlova and Marina Ladynina — whose heroines faced "no obstacles at sea or on land," pressing forward despite every hardship, pursuing their goals and achieving them. Izolda Izvitskaya followed their example. In the spring of 1949, straight from the graduation ball, the whole class saw their "people's actress" off to the Moscow train. The girl didn't even have time to run home, and her mother brought her things to the station. Young Iza was rushing to the entrance examinations at VGIK (the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography). And she got in! Five happy student years at the institute followed. She completed her studies in 1954 — at the very beginning of the brief Khrushchev Thaw. It was a time of discovery in literature and art. Honest, truthful, stirring films appeared on screens one after another — Height, Ballad of a Soldier, The Cranes Are Flying, Spring on Zarechnaya Street, The House I Live In, July Rain… New, young, beautiful faces appeared on screen — Tatyana Samaylova, Rufina Nifontova, Aleksey Batalov, Nikolay Rybnikov, Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Bolotova, Zhanna Prokhorenko — and among them, Izolda Izvitskaya. In 1956, director Grigory Chukhray made a film based on Boris Lavrenev's story "The Forty-First." Its protagonists are participants in the Civil War: a White Guard officer named Govorukha-Otrok and a young Red Army woman, Maryutka, who has been assigned to guard the prisoner. With what skill and deep insight into their characters do the remarkable actors Izolda Izvitskaya and Oleg Strizhenov carry their screen duet. Izvitskaya's heroine Maryutka — a dark, naive peasant girl who has believed in the revolution and a bright future — takes revenge on the enemies of her people. With forty accurate shots already to her name, she does not miss this time either. The forty-first shot was fired not simply at the White officer she had come to love; it was a shot into herself, into her own heart, which had proved capable of deep and powerful love. The morning after the premiere of The Forty-First, Izvitskaya woke up famous. The film received a special prize at the 10th Cannes International Film Festival, where Izolda was called the Russian Marilyn Monroe. Major Western publications ran full-page portraits of Izvitskaya. Press photographers hunted for the actress and lay in wait for her at every turn; newspapers unanimously declared that Izvitskaya was the foremost actress of Soviet cinema. She gazed at her admirers from the covers of glossy magazines and from colorful posters; she was a welcome guest at many clubs and organizations. In Paris, a café called "Isolde" opened. And how proud of her they were back home — in Dzerzhinsk!.. Izvitskaya never knew such success again. Years of oblivion followed. For a time the actress was happy in love — with her husband, actor Eduard Bredun, whom she had met on the set of the film The First Echelon. "How hard it is to be an actress, how desperately difficult. I want fresh air! I want real work, interesting enough that everything else falls away like chaff," Izvitskaya wrote in one of her letters home. When Sergey Kolosov invited her to appear in his film We Call Down Fire upon Ourselves, Izolda lived for a full year and a half with a sense of creative renewal. Then came long months of idleness and being unwanted again. The actress agreed to take even wordless roles and bit parts. Then those stopped coming too. Izvitskaya left this life at the age of 39. At the end of February 1971, the actress was found lifeless on the kitchen floor of her small Moscow apartment. Izolda Izvitskaya is buried in Moscow at Vostryakovskoye Cemetery.