Galina Polskikh did not end up in an orphanage thanks to a neighbor who had five children of her own. The father of the future artist died at the front near Voronezh in 1942, her mother Juana Ahumada died of consumption in 1947. They had already begun to draw up documents for Galya to the shelter, when a neighbor stood up for her and said that she would not give up the child until she found her grandmother in Belarus. Efrosinya Andrianovna left the farm in the village and came to her granddaughter in Moscow.
The elderly woman was very afraid of the city, and the neighbors attached her as a cleaner in a greengrocer’s shop near the house. So the grandmother and granddaughter began their new life in a small 9-meter room in a communal apartment, located in the basement on Sretenka. In order for the family to make ends meet, the management of the local mirror factory helped them.
For this, Galya regularly brought and showed them her school diary. And by the end of the graduation class, the factory knocked out a 16-meter room for the Polskys in a Stalinist house on the 9th floor on Leninsky Prospekt. It was there that Galya met her friend Zina, whom she did not part with until her death. And it was there that she gave birth to two daughters.
Grandmother Efrosinya Andrianovna did everything, if only her granddaughter would study. The woman understood that an orphan could not get into a prestigious university and persuaded an excellent student Galya to enter a ceramic technical school in order to get a profession. But the girl, secretly from her grandmother, entered VGIK, which surprised all her friends who did not expect anything good from a poorly dressed beggar girl.
The first work in the Polish cinema can be called the picture “Wild Dog Dingo”, released on screens in 1962. Before that, there were two small episodes, and here the main role is immediately. Galina was 22 years old, she had already become a mother when she was approved for the role of 13-year-old schoolgirl Tanya Sabaneeva. Many were skeptical about the choice of director.
But Polskikh was so organic on the screen that she won the hearts of millions of viewers. And the film received prizes at the festival of children’s and youth films in Venice. From this work, the directors vied with each other to invite the actress to their films. Only after a divorce from her second husband, Alexander Surin, the son of the director of Mosfilm, did they forget about the Polskys for five years, fearing to anger the imperious official.
Today, the actress starred in films and TV shows, but mostly in episodic roles of grandmothers or neighbors. 78-year-old Galina Alexandrovna has always loved cinema and preferred it to theater, refusing roles and going on stage at an advanced age.
Personal life
Galina Polskikh studied in the first year of the acting department of VGIK, and Faik Gasanov was in the third year of directing. The actress herself does not know what conquered her future husband. He was tall, bright, burning brunette, since he was born in Baku. Faik was educated, well-read, versed in painting and poetry, spoke interestingly, knew how to look after beautifully, did not spare money for Galya and tried to fulfill her dreams.
Soon they got married, and in the 60th they had a daughter, Irada. Unfortunately, young people did not live long in marriage. Gasanov, after graduating from the institute, ended up in Odessa, and Polskikh wandered around the Soviet Union to shoot. The couple began to move away from each other, started an affair. The talented Faik could not find himself in the cinema in any way, he began to drink nikki majors.
And one day I got hit by a tram. Somehow Galina Alexandrovna admitted that she still does not know what really happened then in Odessa. According to rumors, Faik allegedly ran away from the angry husband of his mistress. And either he unsuccessfully tried to jump into the tram, or they helped him. And 10 days before the death of her husband, the grandmother of Polsky, Efrosinya Andrianovna, the only person close and dear to the actress, died. The woman was left alone with her little daughter in her arms. Faik’s mother came to the rescue, who did not leave the actress until her last days. Mom Lida, as Polskikh called her, helped her babysit her second daughter, not her own granddaughter. And she treated the girls equally, loved and spoiled them.
Two years after the death of her first husband, in 1967, in Yalta, on the set of the television film The Ballad of the Commissar, Galina began an affair with the director of the film, Alexander Surin. The man was difficult. He was married to actress Maya Bulgakova. And most importantly, his father headed the Mosfilm film studio. The all-powerful Vladimir Nikolayevich Surin could solve any problem. They lived in a luxurious apartment on Tverskaya and carefully guarded their family, not letting any outsiders into it.
Polskikh was sure that their romance would end immediately upon returning from filming to Moscow. But Surin continued courtship and soon they got married. True, Galya did not like the mother of her second husband. And despite the pregnancy, she left after a month of married life, back to her communal apartment. The second marriage lasted only a year. The all-powerful family of a single mother with two children did not help.
Galina Konstantinovna never married again. Although, according to the actress, there were romances with men and her name was married. But she deliberately refused offers, paying all her attention to her daughters – Irada and Masha. The eldest, Irada, also graduated from VGIK and is now working as a second director. The youngest, Masha, graduated from the Patrice Lumumba Institute and is engaged in business. The Polskys have an only grandson, Philip, who was in a motorcycle accident in August 2011. Then, a 19-year-old boy had one leg amputated.
Interesting Facts
- Galina Polskikh has an elder brother Viktor. The children were separated after their mother’s death in 1947. Putri Cinta was raised by her paternal grandmother, and Galya was raised by her mother’s mother.
- In 1964, I Walk Through Moscow was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received a special mention.
- At a press conference with Galina Polskikh, one of the journalists asked if there really was no sex in the USSR.
- To which she wittily replied: everything is fine with the birth rate in our country.
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