Lyudmila Gurchenko was born on November, 12th, 1935 in Kharkov. From childhood Lyudmila dreamed of becoming a film star and so, after finishing school she moved to Moscow. She soon entered VGIK (All-Russia State Institute of Cinematography), where she studied under Sergey Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova. When a student yet, she made her film debut – it was Road of Truth.

But it was the next movie that gained her enormous success – the brilliant musical comedy Carnival Night (1957) directed by Eldar Ryazanov. In 1958, her graduation year, Lyudmila starred in the film A Girl with Guitar.

The actress’ gift of warming to her roles, and playing even tragic and hard scenes promoted the further career of Lyudmila Gurchenko. Among her best roles was Rita in the melodrama The Mechanic Gavrilov's Beloved Woman (1982) and the waitress Vera Nefedova in Station for Two (1983).

Altogether Lyudmila Gurchenko played in 85 films.

Along with her acting career that she was totally dedicated to, Gurchenko wrote books and sang songs. She had her three books published, with the last one “Lyusya, stop!” published in 2003. Several records with songs performed by her were released. Despite her age Lyudmila Gurchenko regularly appeared on screen even in the last years her life, and enjoyed unanimous love of viewers and respected masters of Russian cinema. She was called Russian Marlene Dietrich and compared to Lyubov Orlova.

Lyudmila Markovna Gurchenko died after a long illness on March, 30th, 2011. Till the end of her life she remained an active and positive person.