Elena Yakovleva
Elena Yakovleva
Elena Yakovleva is a Russian film and stage actress known for the leading role in Intergirl (1989) and also as a lead of the popular Russian TV franchise 'Kamenskaya'. She was born Elena Alekseevna Yakovleva on March 5, 1961, in Novograd-Volynsky, Zhitomir province, Ukraine republic of the Soviet Union (now Novohrad, Ukraine). Her father, Aleksei Nikolaevich Yakovlev, was an Army officer. Her mother, Valeria Pavlovna, was a science researcher. Her great-grandmother was an actress. Young Yakovleva was fond of theatre, she participated in school plays. In 1978 she graduated from a secondary school and took a job as a librarian at public library in Kharkov, then worked at a local electronics industry. In 1980 she moved to Moscow and enrolled in the State Institute for Theatrical Arts (GITIS). In 1984 she graduated from the class of Vladimir Andreev as an actress, and joined the troupe of Sovremennik Theatre in Moscow. In 1983, while still a student, Yakovleva made her big screen debut as Lera opposite Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy in Dvoe pod odnim zontom: Aprelskaya skazka (1983). From 1986-1989 she was a member of the troupe at Moscow Theatre named after M.I. Ermopova, however, she was not very busy on stage. In 1989 Elena Yakovleva shot to fame with the leading role as Tatiana, a medical nurse turned prostitute because of the grim life in the Soviet Union, in Intergirl (1989), a film adaptation of the eponymous book by Vladimir Kunin.
