4 Soviet ballerinas who made a career in cinema

It is believed that in order to become an actor, it is not enough to have talent. To succeed in this difficult creative field, you need to study a lot and hone your skills over the years. But there are exceptions when people from other fields of art come to cinema and become the audience’s favorites. The luckiest people in this regard were the beautiful and graceful ballerinas, whom Soviet film directors loved to cast in important roles.

The choice of cinema masters is not difficult to explain - ballet dancers are not only attractive in appearance, but also very hardworking. For them, several rehearsals a day and many hours of honing movements at the barre are their daily work, so interacting with ballerinas on the set is simple and pleasant.

The assistants of director Emil Loteanu were looking for an actress suitable to play the main female role in the film “My Affectionate and Gentle Animal” for six months. They faced a difficult task, since the author of the picture wanted to see a girl who simultaneously looked like Tatyana Samoilova, Lyudmila Savelyeva and Audrey Hepburn.

Many selections were carried out and among hundreds of applicants we managed to find the only one. The choice fell on a student at the Voronezh Choreographic School, Galina Belyaeva, who had nothing to do with cinema.

During filming, Galina caused Lotyan a lot of grief, since due to the lack of acting experience and young age, the girl was very tense and lost in front of the camera. But thanks to her determination and innate charm, the ballerina still coped with the difficult role. Belyaeva’s film debut was successful and after the film’s premiere the girl woke up famous.

After filming was completed, the girl planned to return to ballet, but her affair with Emil Loteanu prevented this. They started dating, and then got married and the director persuaded his wife to enter the Shchukin School and study to be an actress. Having received a profession, Galina acted a lot in films and played on the stage of the Moscow Mayakovsky Theater.

Despite her success, she admits that she always missed ballet and more than once wondered whether she did the right thing by betraying her childhood dream. The marriage with Loteanu turned out to be fragile and the couple separated after five years. Galina Belyaeva still acts a lot in films and plays in the theater.

Natasha's parents wanted the girl to take up figure skating, but at a sports school, the coach advised them to send the girl to ballet. Thanks to her good data, Sedykh was accepted into the prestigious ballet school at the Bolshoi Theater, after which she graduated from the choreographic school.

The director of the film “Morozko” Alexander Rowe, seeing Natasha, did not doubt for a second that she was simply created for the main role in this fairy tale. When filming began, Sedykh was only 15 years old and she immediately became the favorite of the crew. Everyone tried to help the girl, to support her in difficult work, which was a novelty for her.

Natalya herself later admitted that she fell madly in love with the performer of the role of Ivanushka, Eduard Izotov. The man was much older than her, and besides that, he was married. Perhaps he did not even suspect that his partner had feelings for him, or maybe he simply did not show it.

The fairy tale film “Morozko” became a real high point for the Sedykhs, and offers from directors poured in one after another. The girl played in several more films, but then made a difficult decision and returned to ballet. Together with the Bolshoi Theater troupe, the ballerina traveled all over the world and ended her career 20 years later. After that, Sedykh starred in several more films, but in 2010 she firmly decided to leave cinema.

Natalya Arinbasarova decided that she would become a ballerina in early childhood. She adored the ballet “Swan Lake” and when it was shown on TV she watched with bated breath. The girl constantly pestered her parents with demands to send her to a ballet school and they gave up. Natalya began attending the Alma-Ata School of Arts, and then entered the Academic Choreographic School of the Bolshoi Theater.

Once, director Andrei Konchalovsky chose a girl from the school where Natalya studied for the role of Altynai in the film “The First Teacher”. But in a hurry, no one wrote down the name of the lucky girl and it was impossible to remember who was selected. For some reason, the majority decided that Arinbasarova was the dancer chosen by the director and she was sent to act in films.

The ballerina was approved for the role and she played Altynai so brilliantly that she received the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival in 1966. During filming, the girl had an affair with Andrei Konchalovsky and the couple got married. Soon their son Yegor was born, who continued the director-actor dynasty.

Natalya Arinbasarova graduated from VGIK and then acted a lot. In her creative baggage there are more than 70 paintings that are known and loved in Russia and other countries. The actress believes that it was ballet that gave her the sense of beauty that is important for actors and taught her to work tirelessly.

Like many other girls, Ilze dreamed of ballet since childhood. This is not at all surprising, since her father, Maris Liepa, dedicated his life to dance and achieved great heights in his business. The girl graduated from the Moscow Academic Choreographic School and the pedagogical department of GITIS, after which she began working at the Bolshoi Theater.

Liepa made her film debut in 1984 in Yuri Gorkovenko’s film “The Hero of Her Novel.” The role was episodic, but it opened up new facets of Ilze’s talent. After that, the woman starred in 16 more films and played many roles on the dramatic stage.

Today, Ilze Liepa hosts the author’s program “Ballet FM” on Radio Orpheus, runs her own Pilates studio and writes books. Her last film role was the film “A Bag with No Bottom,” filmed in 2017.