And how after such an immense nationwide success in "Carnival Night" she was banned for a whole 16 years! What really happened there—was it a refusal to collaborate with the KGB or those infamous leftist concerts? It's hard to tell now. So many people, wonderful artists, were broken by this, so many didn't make it to the finish line, yet she, clever and resilient, endured, and a gift came her way in the form of "Old Walls," where she played the factory director. But how! It was as if she jumped over an abyss and once again became a super mega star, but this time with a wealth of bitter life experience.
Her marriages were a story in themselves. There were five or six husbands throughout her life, and it's hard to keep count. Perhaps she chose some of them for practical reasons, while others were selected just to admire her, to carry her on their hands, to understand her like no one else, and to let her pursue her one true love—cinema.
Oh, she was not easy! Just look at how she set the stage for the kind-hearted, wonderful Pyotr Todorovsky in "The Beloved Woman of Mechanic Gavrilov," and the hurtful words she uttered. But it turned out—she was essentially right. Not regarding Todorovsky, no, he is one of the best we have, but in terms of how Gavrilov, played by Sergey Shakurov, should be portrayed in the end. Todorovsky wanted a pure situational comedy, where he is carried out of a police "Gazik" in a wheelchair, while Gurchenko demanded lyricism and masculinity, that very second indispensable layer that elevates a merely good film to a cosmic orbit. Yes, she caused scandals purely for the sake of art and won.
And Stanislav Lyubshin in "Five Evenings"... Their love story is something! She told me personally: "He has no sense of humor, and that means we have nothing in common." It was so surprising, so strict. Although Lyubshin undoubtedly has a sense of humor, it's just different and unique. But she played that love so brilliantly!
Or when, towards the end of the Soviet Union, in the film "My Sailor Girl," she suddenly turned on Lyuba Polishchuk. Maybe it was because of her otherworldly beauty, or perhaps sensing a kindred spirit, a rival. But she really put her down...
Oh, she was complicated. And so courageous! When she was hit by the "sunny" clown Oleg Popov while filming "Mama," she broke her leg, yet soon after, she returned to the set and continued to act in a cast.
And how understanding and tender she was in "A Station for Two." Not just in her role, but as a person. When Ryazanov started filming almost from the last scene, where they confess their feelings to each other in a standing train, Basilaashvili wanted to refuse: how could he kiss a woman who was a stranger to him? But Lyudmila Markovna sensed this, understood her partner, and the next day she wrote in the script exactly such words that made Basilaashvili feel at ease and natural with her—just what was needed. And afterward, they played wonderfully together, both at the beginning and at the end, and became friends. Basilaashvili always called her great, always. Remember how they part? He boards the train, she walks across the bridge to the sound of rolling wheels, people approaching, people... And she is visible from behind, but she plays this separation, the pain of parting, so beautifully with her back... That's an actress!
And of course, "Twenty Days Without War," where she was cropped into a short hedgehog hairstyle, so thin and transparent, yielding to German, who couldn't tolerate the falsehoods of life. What she did to herself there! But later, when the entire film crew learned that a camel had spat on Alexei German in Uzbekistan, she raised a glass of champagne in retaliation for all those sufferings. But if there hadn't been any sufferings, would that great role have happened?
And this is Nikita Mikhalkov, the same one who, in the train compartment during a stop, said to her: "By yourself, by yourself, by yourself...". He once remarked: "Lusya would step over her own mother for the sake of cinema." We shouldn't judge, but her relationships with both her mother and daughter were quite difficult. And she even sued for an apartment—what's done is done.
But she was a great actress, a true people's favorite. When she was traveling by train, in the morning a line formed at the washbasin, and when people recognized Gurchenko, they began to recall her lines from "Love and Pigeons" ("Ladies, calm your mother!" or "Why is she dyed? This is my natural color") and asked her to perform them right there and then. She approached the restroom door, kicked it open, just like Raisa Zakharovna in that very film: "Village!". Everyone applauded and let Lyudmila Markovna go ahead of them.