Lyudmila Kasatkina(1925-2012)

Lyudmila Ivanovna Kasatkina is a Soviet and Russian theater and film actress. People's Artist of the USSR (1975). While studying in the fifth grade, choreographer Igor Lentovskiy came to her school, who selected girls for classes at the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory (Shatskiy Studio). So Kasatkina entered the school's choreographic department. At age 14, she was forced to stop ballet classes due to poor health and a broken leg. She studied at the Studio of Artistic Words at the Palace of Pioneers by Anna Bovshek and Anna Schneider. In 1943, on the advice of Schneider, she entered the GITIS named after A.V. Lunacharskiy in the class of Iosif Rayevskiy and Grigori Konsky. In 1947, after graduation, she was accepted into the troupe of the Central Theater of the Soviet Army, where she worked all her life. Kasatkina played more than sixty roles on the stage, among which the most famous productions include Orpheus Goes Down to Hell by Tennessee Williams, Broadway Charades by Mary Orr and Reginald Denham, Your Sister and Captive by Lyudmila Razumovskaya.

In 1954 she made her film debut, starring in the main role in the comedy Ukrotitelnitsa tigrov (1955). In 1964, she starred in the first Soviet multi-part television movie Vyzyvaem ogon na sebya (1963). She also gained fame thanks to her work on voicing cartoons, in particular, the character of Bagheera in the series Maugli (1973). In 1979, together with her husband, she created a workshop at the acting faculty of GITIS (professor since 1979), which lasted 12 years and gave the professional scene dozens of actors.