Alisa Freindlich
Alisa Brunovna Freindlich (, born 8 December 1934 in Leningrad, Soviet Union) is a Soviet and Russian actress. People's Artist of the USSR (1981). Since 1983, Freindlich has been a leading actress of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. Biography. Alisa Freindlich was born into the family of Bruno Freindlich, a prominent actor and People's Artist of the USSR. She is of German and Russian ancestry. Her father and paternal relatives were ethnic Germans living in Russia for more than a century. In her childhood years, Alisa Freindlich attended the drama and music classes of  the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers. During World War II she survived the 900-day-long Nazi siege of Leningrad and continued her school studies after the war. In the 1950s she studied acting at the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema, graduating in 1957 as actress. From 1957 to 1961 Alisa Freindlich was a member of the troupe at Komissarzhevskaya Theatre in Leningrad. Then she joined the Lensoviet Theatre company, but in 1982, she had to leave it following her divorce from the theatre's director, Igor Vladimirov. Thereupon director Georgy Tovstonogov invited her to join the troupe  of Bolshoi Drama Theater in which she works to this day. Although Freindlich put a premium on her stage career, she starred in several notable movies, including Eldar Ryazanov's enormously popular comedy "Office Romance" (1977), the long-banned epic "Agony" (1975) and Tarkovsky's sci-fi movie "Stalker" (1979). Another notable role was the Queen Anne of Austria in the Soviet TV series "D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers" (1978) and its later Russian sequels, "Musketeers Twenty Years After" (1992) and "The Secret of Queen Anne or Musketeers Thirty Years After" (1993). On her 70th birthday, Freindlich's apartment in St.  Petersburg was visited by Vladimir Putin, who awarded her with the State Prize of the Russian Federation. She also received a Nika Award in 2005. As of 2019, Freindlich is performing in nine productions of the Bolshoi Drama in St. Petersburg, where she is a leading actress.