Svetlana Zhgun Actress Date of Birth: 05.09.1933 Country: Russia

1. Biography of Svetlana Zhgun
2. Early Life and Career
3. Rise to Fame
4. Later Years and Death
5. Svetlana Zhgun passed away on January 18, 1997, at the age of 63.

Biography of Svetlana Zhgun

Svetlana Zhgun was an actress who was considered one of the most beautiful women in the Soviet film industry of the 1960s. Her younger sister, Grenada Nikolaevna Mnatsakanova-Zhgun, also became an actress and was equally stunning. Svetlana Nikolaevna Zhgun was born on September 5, 1933, in the picturesque village of Yareski in the Poltava region of Ukraine. Interestingly, from 1927 to 1937, the renowned film director Alexander Dovzhenko frequently worked in this village, located on the left bank of the Psel River, shooting his best films, and the local population eagerly participated in the filming of crowd scenes.

Early Life and Career

After completing secondary school, Svetlana moved to distant Leningrad and enrolled in the Leningrad Power Engineering Technical School. She graduated from the technical school in 1953, earning a degree in power engineering, and worked for a couple of years at one of the major Leningrad enterprises. In 1956, at the age of 23, the beautiful Svetlana dramatically changed her destiny and passed the entrance exams for the acting department of the Leningrad Ostrovsky Theatre Institute. Even during her third year, in 1959, she played two small roles, Nyura in the comedy "Do Not Have a Hundred Rubles" and Valya, a girl mistaken for the main character Shura, in "A Story about Newlyweds."

Rise to Fame

The following year, in the war drama "A Story of Flaming Years," the first Soviet widescreen film that also won the award for "Best Direction" at the Cannes Film Festival, Svetlana played Ulyana, one of the main heroines. After graduating from the institute, Zhgun was accepted as an actress at the Leningrad Pushkin Drama Theatre, but two years later, she moved to Moscow, first serving at the Lenkom Theatre and then from 1963 to 1967 at the Moscow Art Theatre. Thanks to her appearance and talent, Svetlana became one of the most sought-after young actresses in Soviet cinema during this period. She starred in films such as "The Big Ruda" with Yevgeny Urbansky, "Comrade Arseny," "The Blue Cup," "The Kingdom of Women," "Wait for Me, Anna," "The Quagmire," and others.

Later Years and Death

By the end of the 1970s, Svetlana's career began to decline. She became involved in alcohol, which inevitably affected the quality of her work. In the late 1980s, Svetlana Nikolaevna returned to Moscow and attempted to make a comeback in films. She played a significant character in the social drama "Love with Privileges," which became her last film. Svetlana was married to actor Gennady Nilov ("Three Plus Two," "Snegurochka," "Mission in Kabul," "Captain Nemo," "Anna Karenina"), but the couple divorced after only a year and a half. The well-known Ukrainian actor Ivan Mikolaychuk ("Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," "Lada from Berendeyev Country," "A Man Was Born," "Anxious September Month," "The Legend of Princess Olga"), who was nearly eight years younger than Svetlana, fathered her daughter Lada. Soon after the birth of their child, Svetlana left Moscow. The father of her child was married to Ukrainian actress Marichka Mikolaychuk and had no intention of getting divorced.

Svetlana Zhgun passed away on January 18, 1997, at the age of 63.