The friendly face of this singer in the 60s did not leave TV screens. Larisa Mondrus knew and loved the public in the USSR. Her songs were also appreciated outside the country, where Larisa had been on tour more than once. However, fate turned out so that soon the singer had to move abroad forever.
From the biography of Larisa Izrailevna Mondrus
The future popular singer was born on November 15, 1943 in the city of Dzhambul (Kazakhstan). Her mother, who at that time was 18 years old, met with a cadet of a flight school Israel Mondrus. Young people fell in love and created a family. Soon their daughter Larisa was born.
Father was not taken to the front - he stayed in Vyshny Volochyok and began to teach new recruits the flight business. Mom and daughter in Dzhambul to no avail were waiting for a call from her husband and father. But he disappeared from their horizon forever. Only miserable alimony in favor of his daughter reminded of his existence. All her life, Larisa considered the father of her stepfather.
At the end of the war, mom and Larisa moved to Riga. Here the girl went to high school. Larisa attended classes of the children's choir. The leader of the musical collective immediately recognized the girl's magnificent abilities and predicted a great future for her.
Larisa was fond of pop. She was mainly interested in foreign compositions. At home, she kept spinning records of songs in German, English, Polish, Czech. The voices of the performers often made the girl tremble.
The girl tried not to miss a single school competition, participated in amateur art shows and concerts. The performances of Larisa were always enthusiastically received by the public. She happened to defend the honor of her school at competitions in Kiev and Moscow.
Exact sciences were given to the girl with difficulty. But she loved literature. Larisa found time for sports: she visited the rhythmic gymnastics section. And yet in the end she made a choice in favor of music.
Creativity and career of Larisa Mondrus
After graduation, Larisa entered the Institute of Foreign Languages. Once a freshman called from the Riga Variety Theater and was invited to audition: teachers noticed the girl back in school. Among the many performers, the leader of the orchestra chose Larisa. So the career of a translator ended and the creative career of the singer began.
Back in 1956, the famous Raymond Pauls created his first jazz musical group in Riga. He wrote several songs specifically for Mondrus. In 1964, Larisa received an invitation to perform in the orchestra of Eddie Rosner. At that time, Mondrus was already married. The place of the second conductor of the orchestra was offered to Larisa's husband, Egil Schwartz. To participate in the new project, the family moved to the capital of the USSR.
The popularity of the singer was gaining momentum. He traveled a lot around the country, and during the breaks recorded songs. A real breakthrough in his career occurred in 1965, after Mondrus participated in the “New Year's Eve”, where she sat at the same table with the famous Soviet cosmonauts.
Larisa also had a chance to act in films: he played the singer in Eldar Ryazanov’s painting “Make a Mournful Book”. After this film, the song "Good evening" became a hit. Subsequently, Mondrus traveled to perform in the countries of the socialist camp. She was respected in the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia.
