Erast Garin’s stepdaughter was poisoned by her rival out of jealousy

Erast Garin’s career (real name Gerasimov) was great at the start. Together with his assistant wife Khesya Lokshina, Meyerhold’s student made several excellent films as a director. Including ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, ‘The Wedding’ and the first film interpretation of Schwartz’s ‘The Ordinary Miracle’. He played the lead roles of the king in Cinderella and the archaeologist in Gentlemen of Fortune. But he started going blind. Since then, I’ve been content with giving voice to cartoons. For example, Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh trilogy speaks in his voice.

At one time, Garin left his wife for six years for the sake of an affair with a young theater critic Lyubov Rudneva (Feigelman), who, unlike his childless wife, gave birth to the actor’s daughter Olga. On the occasion of her father’s 120th birthday, the art critic and children’s book author Olga Garina spoke about him.

About parents

– Yes, my father would have turned 120, and I would soon turn 85. I think he was happy that my beloved mother Lyuba Rudneva-Feigelman was with him for a while and I was born.

Mom wrote brilliantly. The heroes of her essays, published, including in the West, were Meyerhold and Zinaida Reich. Mom lived to be almost 90, but she has already been gone for 20 years on this earth. Her father was 12 years her senior. She died 42 years ago – in September 1980.

Once, as a boy, he came from Ryazan, where he served in the theater, to Moscow. Meyerhold, who was looking for gifted people, saw him and invited him to study.

Mother was 22 when she met my father in 1935. By that time she had become famous as a reader. Meyerhold heard her at the Polytechnic Museum, where she performed, and invited her to her theater. But my mother refused to become an actress, this is not her way.

She was principled and sharp, not always a diplomat. And by the way, she is practically an orphan: my grandmother committed suicide at the age of 44.

Mom came to Meyerhold’s team as an assistant – she prepared texts for the productions and it was there that they met Garin. Their romance has begun.

On the tragedy of a sister

– Before Erast, my mother met a very good actor of the Meyerhold Theater Leonid Agranovich (later he became a playwright and wrote scripts for the films “A Man Is Born”, “He Subdues the Sky” and many others. – IG). Two years before me, Alena, my older sister, was born.

Agranovich adored my mother and their daughter. And then he went to work in the Far East. And Garin appeared in my mother’s life.

And years later, in 1961, a terrible story happened to my beloved and only sister, whom both Lilya Brik and Zinaida Reich adored and deservedly considered a beauty.

Alena worked as a paramedic at the Herzen Cancer Institute. We suspected that his supervisor might be involved in his untimely death.

Alena had problems with women’s health, she took medicines, and this older sister, who had access, even to poisons, could mix something with her. She hated Alena and was jealous of a married doctor. Although this doctor and Alena were connected only by friendship, and if love began, then at the platonic level.

One day this lady gave my sister a huge dose of some kind of drug. My sister has returned home. And there, in front of our mother’s eyes, she fell madly ill. She even passed out from her pain.

It’s such a horror to see how a loved one suffers and at the same time understand that there is nothing you can do! Of course, we called an ambulance, but a completely incompetent person arrived. She assured us there was nothing to worry about, she was poisoned, anything could happen. And Alena did not have enough air. We closed the window, because she got very cold and again a terrible attack of pain began. We had to call an ambulance again, but we were immediately warned that Alena would hardly be taken to the hospital.

It took off. And the doctor, because of which everything happened to her, visited her until the end of her mother’s life, they often quarreled about the theater.

It’s been over 60 years since then and I keep scrolling through this situation. Mom reproached herself for not completing this story. The killer should have been arrested! But we believed there was God’s judgment and she got what she deserved.

Of my father and his wife

– My father Erast Garin was harsh and withdrawn. He hated familiarity with the public and when he was recognized. He was warm and tender and vulnerable only during intercourse with my mother.

He fell in love many times in his youth and left his Hesy more than once.

Yes, I was born not in marriage, but in the mad love of two amazing people. Mom and Garin lived together for six years, then he returned to his wife. But my mother retained pity for her. When we got to her performances, she didn’t treat her like a native person, but like an actor with a capital letter.

Everywhere they write that Garin is almost blind, because he got into some kind of car accident. But he is not. It all happened in 1966 on the set of Tarelkin’s Death. The actors were playing snowballs and accidentally hit him in the eye. He has been removed. And the second – almost did not see.

At the end of his life, his father found himself at his broken trough, next to Khesi. He held her and she took care of him. My father was by no means poor – People’s Artist of the USSR, laureate of the Stalin Prize. But the couple had nothing to talk about. Imagine: since 1922, for 58 years they have been together, including at work, with a break for an affair with my mother.

Yes, and no director Khesya, as it is presented. Just my father’s assistant. Nobody took her seriously. Just “bring”, “bring”. Not anymore. Unlike my mother, she was a somewhat limited woman. She decides to dedicate her life to her husband. Luba had big ambitions. Plus, she was bright and vibrant.

After my father’s return, Khesya forgave him, but then for the rest of his life it was, of course, grief. And to me, she is an evil woman who fiercely hated my mother and me.

Did my father love me? My way, probably. We didn’t live together and there wasn’t much intimacy between us. He had a high opinion of himself, he was used to compliments all his life and when he went blind, it all fell apart.

On the work of Garin

– I would not call my father a brilliant actor. I think the sequel plays the king. In “Cinderella” he got into the ensemble of the great Merkuriev, Zheymo, Ranevskaya. And so the movie came out so beautifully. And as a director, he is also not mine, not at all interesting to me. But I really love his painting “An Ordinary Miracle”.

About mom fans

– Instead of the real and insanely beautiful surname Feigelman, in 1949 my mother took the pseudonym Rudneva. There was such a time, they fought with cosmopolitans and began to persecute her when she became a prominent critic.

Mom was not only smart, but also a seductive beauty, men fell in love with her.

She performed many times with the outstanding reader Vladimir Yakhontov. And with the poet and historian Shura Nemirovsky, one of the men in love with her mother, she was her lifelong friend. He is tall, she is petite. Falling in love with my Lyuba was easy and simple.

Another friend of his, electrical engineer Gleb Arkhangelsky, died, one might say, because of his mother. They argued, he climbed onto the step of the carriage, thought of something about him, the train started moving and half of his skull was blown off.

The poet Yaroslav Smelyakov, in love with his mother, wrote poems about her that glorified her: “Lyubka Feigelman”. It ended up being a great song.

My mother’s last husband was 17 years younger than her and only seven years older than me. This is a prose writer, writer and journalist Yuri Polukhin. Mom saved his whole life, he drank a lot. And he didn’t even make it to 50. Died of cancer. Yes, they had a big age difference, so it was considered a rarity.

Mom wrote the book “House on Bryusovskaya”, and I gave her my word that I would publish it. I kept my promise. And I really appreciate this book.

About Paustovsky and the personal

– At a young age, I was madly in love with Konstantin Paustovsky. Such heavenly love as a person. Mom was resting in the House of Creativity, and I met the writer there. He was already an elderly man, almost 50 years older than me. They sat down at the same table with him, walked, talked. Paustovsky was a brilliant storyteller. And he treated me so amazingly. He presented his book to him and signed: “To dear Olya, Olga Erastovna, with a secret and obvious sincere inclination.” And I gave him toys.

I don’t like to talk about my personal life. I have a husband, I’m fine.