People's Artist of the USSR and beloved Russian actress Lyudmila Kasatkina has died at the age of 86 in Moscow. Her death was announced by her son Alexei Kolosov, famous jazz musician.

      Lyudmila Kolosova has died 11 days after the death of her only and dear husband Sergey Kolosov, a film director, who passed away on the 91st year of his life. The couple have been married for almost half of a century. 

       Today a civil commemoration ceremony is taking place in the Russian Army Theatre - the main stage in Kasatkina's life. Hundreds of people with flowers and candles are coming this moment to the theatre to pay their last respect to the great actress. 

      Then it will be followed by requiem service in the Novodevitchy monastery. Lyudmila Kasatkina will be buried near her husband in the Novodevitchy cemetery. 

      Lyudmila Kasatkina was born in 15 May 1925 in a village near Vyazma town. She attended a ballet school, but then had to give it up because of the broken leg at the age of 14. Then Lyudmila joined the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts. After graduation, she entered the troupe of the Red Army Theatre (later the Russian Army Theatre) in 1947 and worked there for the rest of her life, played more than 40 different roles. 

      Kasatkina's breakthrough film role was a tiger tamer in "Tiger Girl" (1954) where she was doubled by Margarita Nazarova, a professionally trained tiger handler. Her best roles were usually in movies directed by her husband, such as Katherina from "The Taming of the Shrew", Olga from the "Sweetheart" (Dushechka), terrorist Maria from the "Trust" Operation" and many others.

      Lyudmila Kasatkina was also well-known for her great voice acting in Soviet cartoons, for example, the voice of Bagheera from the "Mowgli" cartoon (1967-1971).

      Sources: RIA Novosti LifeNews Wikipedia Image: zn.by

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