- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVera Valentinovna Bykova
- Height5′ 7¾″ (1.72 m)
- Vera Alentova is among the most popular Soviet and Russian actresses, thanks to her wonderful performance in Vladimir Menshov's internationally acclaimed Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980). Born in 1942 into a family of actors (the apple does not fall far from the tree!), she naturally started studying drama at the Moscow Theatre Art Studio once she had graduated from high school. In 1962, aged 20, she married future director Vladimir Menshov, the man who would make her world famous eighteen years later. Active in the theater in the first years of her career (she appeared in a single film in the 1960s), she turned to television ("Rozhdenie", her first TV movie in 1977) and the seventh art. Success was awaiting her in the latter medium, thanks to the role of Katia, a modern free woman, in the already mentioned Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) . Seen by 84,400,000 people in the Soviet Union (wow!), she immediately became a star in her country. She was also noticed throughout the world after the film received the Best Foreign Movie Award. Vera Alentova went on with her career, often playing unsatisfied women coping with midlife crisis (Vremya zhelaniy (1984) ; Zavist bogov (2000)). Unfortunately her films were little seen outside Russia, so the rest of the world has been deprived of her talent. Too bad.
- IMDb mini biography by: Guy Bellinger - Vera Alentova is a Soviet and Russian theater and film actress.
Vera went to school in Krivoy Rog, studied in Kokand, and graduated from school in Barnaul. She tried to enroll in medical school, but was unsuccessful. Then she joined the local theater troupe. In 1961, she went to Moscow, where she enrolled and graduated from the acting department of the Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko School-Studio in 1965. The same year she was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow Drama Theatre named after Aleksandr Pushkin, in which she served for 60 years.
She made her film debut in the film Dni lyotnye (1966). Success came to her after her role in the film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980), directed by her husband, Vladimir Menshov.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tango Papa
- SpouseVladimir Menshov(1963 - July 5, 2021) (his death, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsValentin BykovIrina Alentova
- RelativesAndrey Gordin(Grandchild)Taisiya Gordina(Grandchild)
- (August 25, 1992) People's Artist of Russia.
- She was named in honor of her maternal grandmother, who died at the age of 28.
- She received the USSR State Prize (1981) in the field of art, for her role in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980).
- From 2009, she co-operated with her husband, Vladimir Menshov, in an acting and directing workshop in VGIK.
- Alentova fell ill during the funeral service for her colleague Anatoly Lobotsky. She was urgently carried out of the Vladimir Mayakovsky Moscow Academic Theater on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to the hospital.
- When you live such a long life and can look back, the only thing you clearly understand is that nothing is accidental. One coincidence leads to a second, a third. Then, from these are formed stories, pictures, encounters, life...
- They listened to me attentively and kindly, then asked me to sing, and I did. Then they asked me to lift my skirt higher to see if my legs were crooked, and my legs turned out to be fine. Calling me over, a member of the examination jury declared that I would never be able to play major roles, he said: 'You, my dear, shouldn't even go near the stage. You'll never be an actress'. [re passing exams at the Shchepkin School]
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