She became a movie star, contacted a swindler and miraculously survived: the story of the 'main alien of the USSR'
'24.06.2021'
Source: Lenta.ru report
Actress and model Elena Metelkina, unlike other Soviet fashion models, is known not only to those who flipped through fashion magazines and went to fashion shows during the USSR - all Soviet children of the 1980s knew her face. Metelkina was the star of two fantastic films according to the script of Cyrus Bulychev: “Through thorns to the stars” and “Guest from the future”. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the USSR, Metelkina’s career was interrupted for a long time, and the struggle against poverty in post-Soviet Russia and family hardships cost her enormous mental strength. About the difficult life path of the “alien” fashion model and her victory over circumstances - in the material "Tapes.ru".
In the movie without VGIK
Elena Metelkina was born in 1953. A classic post-war child: father, Vladimir Dmitrievich, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a military engineer, a major guard, a participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, a graduate, and then a teacher at the Frunze Academy. Mother, Ninel Petrovna, was also associated with the army - she worked in the Ministry of Defense.
The family lived pretty well by Soviet standards. Lena's parents were given an apartment, and then with the money received by Vladimir Dmitrievich for inventions, the family built a house in a summer house cooperative not far from Krasnoarmeysk, where they spent the summer. Metelkina recalls that the summer cottage looked so respectable that it even aroused interest among OBKhSS employees, but the owner convinced them of the legality of their income.
Little Lena was like an ugly duckling: a thin girl with pigtailed hair, puffy lips, big-eyed, a little clumsy. But with age, she straightened out and became an attractive girl. Khudoba, who upset her mother's peers (in the USSR in the 1950s, plump beauties with a healthy glow) were considered beauties), among girls of the late 1960s - early 1970s was considered a virtue. Despite the Iron Curtain, the Union already saw photographs of slender Western fashion models Twiggy and Verushka.
However, the young Lena Metelkina did not think about the career of the model. She, like many of her peers, was attracted by the theater stage and movie screen. After school, she tried to enter the Shchukin school, but did not pass the competition. However, there is a blessing in disguise: at an audition, she was noticed by the assistant director, Ekaterina Stashevskaya (Naroditskaya), who was looking for lay actors to shoot episodes in the film “Shores”. She invited Metelkin to act in film. The unsuccessful applicant went to the Volga, acquired the first film experience and met the director. Stashevskaya praised the girl’s appearance, comparing Lena with Edita Piekha. The film was released in 1973.
And Lena, meanwhile, got a job at the library. A year after the first failure with admission, she again tried her luck, however, the entrance examinations at VGIK, which she preferred this time to Schuka, Metelkina also failed. It was necessary to decide how to earn a living.
GUM, outfits, abroad
Metelkina was very upset that she did not add up to the acting profession. The experience of filming made an inaccessible career even more attractive. The girl’s mother, a practical woman, gave her daughter advice on how to use her outstanding external data outside the cinema and theatrical stage: to get a fashion model.
The father, a solid and respectable man, objected - he found the profession of the model “indecent” and wanted his daughter to receive a serious education. However, Elena had other plans. She followed the mother’s advice and decided to get a job at the All-Union House of Fashion Models on Kuznetsky Most.
Metelkina was not hired for a permanent job. Continuing to work in the library, she from time to time filmed for the magazine "Season Models" published by ODMO. Later, in an interview with a glossy magazine, Lena recalled her first meeting with fashion designer Vyacheslav Zaitsev: “Once I got dressed, took a pose in front of the photographer, suddenly a curly-haired young man in a blue overalls burst into the studio, looked me over and decisively said:“ No, that won't work, pen in the side, twist the heel. This is what you need, freeze! ””.
According to Metelkina, Zaitsev did not appreciate her; among the models, he had his favorites. As a result, it did not work out with a career in ODMO either: there was no staff for Elena, I had to go to work in the Demonstration Hall of the main department store of the country - GUM. There was a small “fashion house” - an atelier that sewed dresses and suits from fabrics sold in the store: four seasonal collections a year. They, in fact, were advertised by fashion models.
The clothes from the Gum studio, where several talented but often unknown designers worked, could be afforded only by large officials, wives of party leaders and famous actresses. For example, the operetta star Tatyana Shmyga ordered evening and concert dresses at the GUM.
Metelkina recalls that her salary at GUM was 140 rubles: 30 rubles more than the salary of a young specialist who had just graduated from high school. One dress in the studio cost almost the same. Therefore, the girls could not afford to dress “at the place of work,” but they could rent an outfit for special occasions, such as theater or movie premieres, and choose accessories for it — a belt, a hat, and a handbag.
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Behind the scenes of the shows, according to Elena, competition reigned, sometimes not quite healthy. Some models before entering the podium could push the rival or make a mess in her suit.
“Our administration soon noticed that the model Lenka Danishevskaya was literally hunting me down, and took action. A living corridor of service personnel was lining up behind the scenes, preventing the predatory rival from approaching me, ”- Elena Metelkina.
Apart from these minor troubles that any model in any country in the world was likely to encounter, Elena’s career at GUM was quite successful. She was “traveling”, that is, she regularly went on business trips abroad. True, they were limited to the socialist countries: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, army garrisons of the Western Group of Forces in the GDR. The shows were held in large department stores of the socialist countries and in the army cultural houses: the wives of Soviet officers also sought to dress beautifully.
Metelkina, although she belonged to the Soviet bohemia, was not fond of entertainments like parties with a drink in the summer cottages or romance with movie stars. According to her, she spent her free time reading, walking and doing yoga, then still little known. The model learned asanas from books.
On the catwalk - to the stars
A modeling career gave Elena a second chance to get on the movie screen. This time the attempt was much more successful. Again the case helped. In the late 1970s, director Richard Viktorov, author of the 1974 teenage movie hit Moscow - Cassiopeia, began work on the film Through Thorns to the Stars, scripted by popular science fiction writer Kira Bulychev. The picture, the release of which was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight into space, spoke about the rescue of the alien clone girl by earthlings and her further adventures on Earth and on her home planet in an ecological disaster.
It is clear that the success of the film, the shooting of which began in 1979, depended directly on the performer of the role of the main character, the alien Niyi. The film crew spent a lot of time in unsuccessful searches, until Viktorov and Bulychev were shown photos of Elena in one of the fashion magazines. The creators of the film realized that a thin girl with a swan neck, huge eyes and a completely unrequited look is exactly what they need.
Elena was invited to film screenings. For samples, she had to wear a tight-fitting leotard and a rubber cap (according to the plot, Niyi has very short hair). The photos were immediately approved, but an unexpected complication appeared. For all her harmony and figure of the ballerina, Metelkina was, according to her, a completely unsportsmanlike person, and her heroine was supposed to perform gymnastic exercises in the frame.
For some time, the director was looking for a candidate for the main role, but realized that it was easier to teach Elena how to do somersaults than to find an athlete with the same unearthly appearance. “I was hired by a gymnastics coach who taught me how to spin a wheel and do somersaults,” Metelkina recalled. - I parted with hair without any regret: it is necessary so. Since I had to resign from GUM, it didn’t matter. ”
Apart from a temporary refusal of hair and leaving your favorite job, shooting with Viktorov left Lena with the most pleasant memories. The director was a teacher by education and shot a lot of teenagers, so he knew how to work with non-professional actors. He was attentive and caring with Metelkina.
“A psychological load was not required during the reincarnation. You just had to live the life of a good script, ”Elena said later in an interview on the radio.
“The girl I played was very sympathetic. Everyone felt the significance of simple human feelings. This heroine was like a blank sheet of paper, she did not know how to love, make friends, how to relate to others, what to cherish in life, what is expensive. She learned this from people ”, - Elena Metelkina.
The film was released, as expected, in 1981 and enjoyed great success. In the first year of rental in cinemas, it was watched by more than 20 million people, later it was shown on television many times and brought to cinema screenings in pioneer camps across the country. The performer of the role of Niyi began to be recognized on the streets, according to polls of newsreels, she was one of the five most popular actresses of the year. At the International Film Festival of Sci-Fi Films in Trieste in 1982, Elena Metelkina received the Silver Asteroid special prize for Best Actress.
Kir Bulychev also appreciated the model actress. On his initiative, in 1983 she starred in the short film "Golden Fish" (script by Kira Bulycheva, director Alexander Mayorov). Unfortunately, scenes with the participation of Elena were not included in the final version of the picture. But the collaboration between the model and the science fiction did not end there: a year later, she gained real fame among Soviet schoolchildren of the lower and middle classes.
The director Pavel Arsenov shot the multi-part television film “A Guest from the Future” based on the script by Cyrus Bulychev (and based on his novel “A Hundred Years Ahead”). This mini-series has become, without exaggeration, the most popular children's film of the 1980s in Russian. The roles of space villains were played by the famous actors Vyacheslav Nevinny and Mikhail Kononov, and Elena Metelkina was offered the role of a positive heroine - Polina, an employee of the Moscow Institute of Time. While the children were fascinated by the adventures of schoolchildren and the fight against space pirates, their mothers carefully examined the futuristic outfits Metelkina invented by the costumes of the film studio.
In the same year, Yevgeny Gerasimov directed Elena in the film "Very Important Person", but invited another actress to the voice acting. According to Metelkina, this happened because she refused the director of his romantic claims. Whether this is true or not is unknown, but the actress really had no time for casual affair. Cinema has changed not only her professional life, but also her personal one.
"Helen, this is not a person of your circle"
During the filming of “Through thorns to the stars” in Crimea, Elena met a man who became her husband and the father of her child. Sergey was a resident of a provincial Ukrainian city; he came to Yalta to rest. Metelkina, like all members of the film crew, lived in a hotel and went to the beach in her free time, where she met Sergey. He was sweet and unobtrusive, and Elena gradually gained confidence in him, accepted invitations to the restaurant and for walks.
According to the model, the director of the film immediately noticed that something had changed in his heroine’s personal life.
“Viktor strictly forbidden anyone to approach me with cupids. Niyya is a sexless creature, she should not have betrayed any female emotions, ”Elena recalled. The director immediately noted the “inappropriate femininity” in the actress’s behavior on the set, and when Sergey came to the shooting, he expressed dissatisfaction.
Metelkina’s boyfriend didn’t cause sympathy also with her shooting partner Elena Fadeeva.
“She said:“ Helen, this is not a person of your circle. ” And I had a fan of confidence. I wanted to be friends with him, he did not pull him to bed, and it bribed him, ”the actress said many years later in an interview. As a result, after returning to Moscow, the couple formalized relations at the registry office. The Ukrainian moved to live in the Metelkin’s Moscow apartment.
It soon turned out that all of Sergey’s romanticism was thoroughly deceitful. He did not want to get a job, interrupted by casual earnings and referring to poor health. The family was maintained by Elena. She did not return to GUM; there were no more vacancies there. Metelkina entered the Moscow House of Models. The deputy director personally offered her a job: they say, after filming a movie, the fashion model is waiting for popularity and new opportunities.
However, soon the work had to take a break: the model became pregnant. The husband, according to Lena, was categorically against the child and persuaded her to have an abortion. He already had a child from his first marriage in his homeland. Metelkina categorically refused to have an abortion, and Sergey became emphatically dismissive and aggressive. And after the birth of a son, the relationship fell apart completely.
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“Former father-in-law threatens to shoot me”
If the matter was limited to divorce, it would be half the trouble. Sergei wanted to sue the part of the Metelkin’s apartment in which he was registered, and began to intrigue against the parents of his ex-wife. “I wrote a denunciation to my mother, who worked at the Ministry of Defense, accusing her of almost espionage,” the fashion model recalled years later. - I did not suspect that the former managed to rummage through his parents' apartment and discovered his father’s pistol, which was kept in memory of the war. A new denunciation flew to the military prosecutor’s office: “Former father-in-law threatens to shoot me.” Father was summoned and questioned for a long time. ” Vladimir Dmitrievich had to surrender commemorative weapons. Later, he could not stand the family troubles and committed suicide.
Litigation lasted more than four years and cost a lot of money and nerves. Elena said that at this difficult moment, people from the KGB came to her, offering cooperation in exchange for help with a divorce. However, Metelkina preferred not to mess with the “office” and, in her words, “pretended to be a fool.” In the circles of fashion models, there was a dramatic fate for the model of Regina Zbarskaya, in which they saw the “hand of the KGB”.
Elena Dmitriyevna, with the help of expensive lawyers, managed to declare the marriage invalid and to discharge her former husband from the apartment. Neither she nor her son saw Sergei. Lena's mother retired and helped her with her child, but the psychological atmosphere in the family was not the best. Ninel Petrovna suffered from depression, later became seriously ill.
The economic situation in the country was far from rosy. In 1991, the USSR collapsed, and people did not have time for domestic fashion. Clothing markets traded cheap clothes, and most women simply did not have money for expensive indosha. Mila Nadtochy, one of the fashion designers who worked in the GUM atelier, invited Metelkina to her small salon, which soon went bankrupt. In 1992, the model starred in an episodic role in the horror film “Touch”, staged by Albert Mkrtchyan, but it did not bring a lot of money.
One of the female model friends helped Elena Dmitrievna get a secretary in the office of businessman Ivan Kivelidi, president of the Russian Business Roundtable, head of the League of Cooperatives and Entrepreneurs of Russia, founder of Mosbusinessbank. Kivelidi Metelkina worked for five years. This work almost cost her her life: the criminals, apparently hired by the businessman’s rivals, inflicted potent poison on the telephone in his office. In the dashing 1990s, such a showdown was not uncommon.
Fortunately for Metelkina, she was not the "close" secretary of Kivelidi and did not answer his personal calls. The businessman died, and a colleague of Elena, who worked with him, died. Deputy Kivelidi Vladimir Khutsishvili was charged with the murder.
For a while, Metelkina still worked in the company founded by the late businessman, then she was fired. The fashion model is already 45 years old, the country was not the best of times. Elena Dmitrievna had to do a variety of things: she worked as a teacher in a correctional boarding school for children with disabilities, a saleswoman in a shoe store, and an administrator in an educational center. In 2002, Alexei Balabanov shot Metelkina in an episode of his film "War" about the second Chechen one.
In her declining years, Elena Dmitrievna became a church worker and became an active parishioner of an Orthodox church, whose abbot offered her a job. Metelkina worked in a church shop and sang on the choir. Christian beliefs supplemented in her mind the practice of yoga and the philosophical views of Mahatma Gandhi, which she was fond of in her youth. Her only son, Alexander, graduated from college, but chose to work as a car mechanic. As Elena Dmitrievna recalled, she had great difficulty saving him from bad companies.
In 2018, the former fashion model, who admitted many times that she had “played enough” and “can no longer see rags,” suddenly returned to the profession of her youth. Anastasia Lavrova, founder of the Garnet Garden Fashion Art brand of elegant women’s clothing, invited Elena Metelkina to become the company's brand ambassador. The actress very worthy starred in a photo shoot in the French landscape park Les Jardins d'Etretat.
The personal life of the actress and model did not suit. “I did not meet a normal man. Where did they go? I’m grieving, but until my death I will wait for my fate - a good Christian who will offer me a hand and a good heart, ”Metelkina shared in an interview with the same glossy magazine.
