Theater and film actress Elena Prudnikova is the heiress of the French revolutionary, lost in the vastness of Russia during the time of Herzen and the Don Cossacks-Old Believers.
She was born in Rostov-on-Don in 1949, where her childhood passed. In her family there were repressed, revolutionary-minded and prosperous people. One of the great-grandfathers is a horse breeder, the other is a French nihilist. And the fate of all ancestors was very difficult.
Elena was also born at a time when the country was only recovering from a terrible war, life was not easy. However, from early childhood, Lena knew that she would become an actress.
When she was 10 years old, she began to study at the theater studio of the House of Pioneers. At different times, celebrities such as director A. Vasiliev, actress E. Glushchenko, actor and director A. Kaidanovsky were engaged there.
Elena liked the classes very much, especially since she was entrusted with the main roles in the performances, and was also instructed to read poetry at major city holidays, because she had a very clear voice.
Actor career
Inspired by success, Prudnikova went to Moscow, and entered the Moscow Art Theater School, which she graduated with success. Then, as was customary in Soviet times, it was distributed among the country's theaters, and Elena again ended up in her native Rostov, where she was accepted into the local theater. She played several roles here, but still the dream of Moscow lived in her heart.
Once Prudnikova decided: she went to audition at the Taganka Theater and was accepted into the troupe by Yuri Lyubimov. Here she was entrusted with an important role: Katerina in Ostrovsky’s Storm and other performances. Then there was the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, working with famous directors. And along the way - work in the cinema.
The film debut for Elena happened with the film "Gypsy" in 1967, when she was still a student. It was an episode, but in the early 70s she already had two films at once: "Two Sisters" and the comedy "Shores".
The first significant role was played by Elena in the melodrama "Acting" - all the more so as Freindlikh, Kozakov, Bykov, and Broneva starred in the same cast here.
However, the actress’s calling card is Katya Tatarinova in the film “Two Captains”. Critics assure that so far no one has been able to play Katya in the way that Prudnikova did, as if she had entered the image of a girl.
In the 2000s, Elena Prudnikova starred in the series with her husband, and then tried herself in production: she became one of the producers of the drama "Once upon a time there was a woman", which caused a great resonance.