Anastasiya Vertinskaya

Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya (, born 19 December 1944, Moscow, Soviet Union) is a Soviet and Russian actress, who came to prominence in the early 1960s with her acclaimed performances in Scarlet Sails, Amphibian Man and Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet. In the 1990s, disillusioned with the state of cinema at home, she went abroad to teach and spent 12 years in France, England, the United States and Switzerland. In 1988 Vertinskaya was designated a People's Artist of Russia. She is also a recipient of the Order of Honour (2005) and the Order of Friendship (2010). Biography Anastasiya Vertinskaya was born on 19 December 1944, in Moscow, soon after her father, the famous singer-songwriter Alexander Vertinsky returned from Harbin with his Georgian wife, painter and actress Lidiya Vertinskaya (née Tsirgvava). Anastasiya and her sister Marianna (one year her senior) spent their early years in the Moscow Metropol hotel; it was only in 1946 that the family was granted a proper flat at Gorky Street, 14. Their childhood was happy: growing up in a bi-lingual family, Anastasiya enjoyed intellectually stimulating environment and the rich cultural atmosphere of her parents' circle. Both sisters attended an ordinary school; studying music and foreign languages were regarded as educational priorities by their parents. Vertinsky never scolded his daughters for failures, of which there were many because, as Anastasiya later remembered, she was more concerned at the time with exploring her dad's vast library than with her school studies. Alexander developed his own way of dealing with his daughters' problems. "He used to say: 'Now, the news of your misbehaviour make me suffer enormously' and I tried my best to somehow harness this nasty temper of mine – if only to relieve him from those sufferings," Vertinskaya remembered decades later.