Vera Maretskaya

Vera Petrovna Maretskaya (; 31 July 1906 – 17 August 1978) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actress. People's Artist of the USSR (1949) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1976). Early years Vera Petrovna Maretskaya was born in Barvikha, Moscow Governorate. She helped her father Pyotr, who was a candy bar vendor at Moscow Circus. Maretskaya was auditioned by Yevgeny Vakhtangov and studied at Vakhtangov Theatre School, from which she graduated as an actress in 1924. That same year she became permanent member of Theatre-Studio led by Yuri Zavadsky. She soon married him, and they had one son. They remained lifelong friends and stage partners, even after the end of their brief marriage. Life and career In 1925, Maretskaya made her film debut in The Tailor from Torzhok. She played roles in fifteen silent films. In 1937 Maretskaya suffered from political execution of her two brothers, journalists Dmitry and Grigory, who were the followers of opposition politician Nikolai Bukharin. Maretskaya appealed to the Soviet government, but her appeal was ignored. Her brothers were executed by gunshots during the purges of the "Great Terror" under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. She lost her second husband, a young actor, named Georgy Troitsky, who was killed in action in 1941, during the Second World War. She took care of her own two children, and also adopted the children of her executed brothers. She was supported by Yuri Zavadsky.