Nice girl Lida... and Shurik's other girlfriends

Alexander Demyanenko — Shurik — had a difficult task: he played an intellectual in the most "unintelligent" genre — folk comedy. But on the screen Shurik got only beauties — real sex symbols of the Soviet era.

"Adult Children", 1961

The family is a cell of socialist society, and family comedy is a favorite Soviet genre. 16 years before the film "For Family Reasons", Alexander Demyanenko played another unhappy son—in—law who is desperately trying to charm a harsh mother-in-law (and father-in-law at the same time). A very young actor (he was only 23 years old at the time of filming) was assigned a beautiful Liliana Aleshnikova as a partner.

"The Career of Dima Gorin", 1961

Another favorite plot of Soviet screenwriters: a clean-minded intellectual gets into the company of ordinary guys and discovers a "working bone" in himself. Shurik Demyanenko has the role of a financial employee who only knows how to count money and wipe fogged glasses. By mistake, he ends up at a Siberian construction site, falls in love with the foreman of the installers, Galya Berezka, and decides to stay…

Tatiana Konyukhova was not only six years older than her partner, at the time of filming she was already an experienced actress ("Career ..." — her eighteenth film!). She didn't like the script, and in general she thought that in her "almost thirty" she had already played enough of such labor strikers. But her candidacy was supported by Sergei Gerasimov himself — and the gods, as you know, are not denied.

By the way, in the scene where the hero Demyanenko defends the honor of Gali, the actor really gave a great hook to Vladimir Vysotsky. It turns out that Alexander Sergeevich was almost professionally engaged in boxing. So much for an intellectual!

"Operation Y and other adventures of Shurik", 1963

The "star" character of Alexander Demyanenko is present in all three novels, but only in the second of them, in "Obsession", Leonid Gaidai gave Shurik a romantic interest. "The good girl Lida", a clever and beautiful woman, was spied by the director in the Polish magazine "Hairpins". Three hundred girls auditioned for this role, but Leonid Iovich took 18-year-old Natasha Selezneva. In many ways — for special courage.

Even the censors did not expect such a stunning pressure — maybe that's why the "scene with a red bikini", quite erotic, was allowed to be left in the film.

"The Caucasian Captive, or the New Adventures of Shurik", 1967

Not everyone knows that this is a continuation of "Operation Y", although there Shurik took exams at the polytechnic, and here he is a philologist-folklorist. And red tape is not peculiar to the Soviet intelligentsia (at least on the screen): since you love, get married! And not only is there not a word about the "good girl Lida", so the authors also slip another one! This time — the brunette Natasha Varley, "a student, a Komsomol member, an athlete and just a beauty."

The search for Nina was even harder than the search for Lida: about five hundred girls auditioned for the main female role.

Natasha was helped by the fact that in the past she was a tightrope walker in a circus, was not afraid of heights and was ready to perform many tricks herself. In addition, Natasha approached Alexander Demyanenko in height: Natasha Selezneva was a head taller than her partner, and the operators had to work hard to hide it.

"Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession", 1973

Leonid Gaidai liked to work with a proven team — it is not surprising that Natasha Selezneva was again hired for the role of the wife of the engineer-inventor Timofeev (also, by the way, Alexander-Shurik). Bulgakov wrote the play of the same name in 1935 — maybe that's why there is a lot of Nepmanian young ladies in "actress Zinochka" (especially from the cannibal Ellochka in "12 chairs" - she was also very frivolous and was also married to an engineer).

Gaidai chose Selezneva despite the fact that Bulgakov had a completely different type: "And the boyar is beautiful, white velmi, scarlet lips, eyebrows allied, body abundant" (according to Ivan the Terrible, of course). Well, Natalia Selezneva was proud of her excellent figure and was not ready to change it even for the sake of an acting feat.