Zhanneta "Zhanna" Trofymovna Prokhorenko was a Ukrainian-born Soviet-era actress, best known to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n audiences for her role in Grigori Chukhrai

Grigori Chukhrai

Grigori Naumovich Chukhrai was a prominent Soviet film director and screenwriter. He is the father of director Pavel Chukhrai.-Career:He was born in Melitopol in the Zaporizhia Oblast of Ukraine...

's 1959 film, Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier , is a 1959 Soviet film directed by Grigori Chukhrai and starring Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko. While set during World War II, Ballad of a Soldier is not primarily a war film...

.

Life/career

She was born in Poltava

Poltava

Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, and grew up in central Ukraine before she and her family moved to Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

. She graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in 1964. She was awarded People's Artist of the USSR

People's Artist of the USSR

People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Nomenclature and significance :...

in 1988.

Marriages

Prokhorenko married twice: Her first husband was film director Evgeniy Vasilyev (Евгений Иванович Васильев), they had one daughter actress Ekaterina Vasiyeva (the mother of Russian actress Mariana Spivak). Her second husband, writer Artur Makarov, was murdered in 1995.