He Lived With His Wife for 40 Years and Left for a 20-Year-Old: The Personal Dramas of Stanislav Lyubshin

Stanislav Lyubshin was rightly considered one of the main beauties of Soviet cinema. Oh, how many women’s hearts sank because of the piercing and such deep gaze of her Alexander Belov, a brave and noble scout of “Shield and Sword”. This role earned him the title of best actor in 1968 according to a readers’ poll of Soviet Screen magazine. At the same time, Lyubshin shone on the capital’s theatrical stage.

Immediately after graduating from the theater school, he joined the Sovremennik troupe, the performances of which all Moscow eagerly awaits, and immediately made his debut there in the play Five Evenings. Then he served for several years in the Taganka Theater and in the theater. Yermolova, and in the late 1970s ended up at the Malaya Bronnaya Theater, when the legendary Anatoly Efros held performances there.

But all the while fans sighed in vain with bouquets at the service entrance. Lyubshin was long and desperately married. He married in 1955. His chosen one was not connected with the art world, and the acquaintance took place in very prosaic circumstances and far from the bohemian atmosphere. A student of the Academy of Agriculture, Svetlana, came to train in the native village of Lyubshin, Vladykino, near Moscow. The future actor himself then mastered only the labor specialty – he learned to be a welder and worked as a guard at the state farm where his father and mother worked. But deep in his soul, he was still thinking about trying his luck and taking the acting exams. Classes from the local drama circle convinced Lyubshin that acting was his true calling.

He was only 22 – and his life changed dramatically in all areas at once. Lyubshin married Svetlana, entered the Higher Theater School named after MS Shchepkin and became a father – the firstborn Yuri was born to the young spouses.

The bohemian environment in which Lyubshin found himself became a source of endless experiences for his wife, who soon began working as the editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

At school, the handsome Lyubshin immediately found himself in the center of female attention, then his partners on stage and in the cinema will be such spectacular actresses as Zhanna Bolotova, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Alla Demidova and Anastasia Vertinskaya.

Svetlana did not deny that she was jealous of her husband, fearing office romances, but Lyubshin was not distinguished by frivolity. Yes, and Svetlana tried to be there: at first she went to her husband’s student performances, trying not to “harass” him too much on the subject of income and let his dream come true, and then provide a solid back when Lyubshin became an All-Union star. In 1964, the couple had a second son, Vadim.

Despite Lyubshin’s activity and Svetlana’s worries, the family remained strong. It would seem that the older the actor got, the less Svetlana should have worried – what can destroy a relationship when people have already been living together for 44 years? And yet it happened – a sudden belated love entered Lyubshin’s life.

Lyubshin was already 60 years old when, while touring Poland, he met journalist Irina Korneeva. The girl was only 20 years old, and after the performance she came to interview the actor. And stayed in his life.

Few people believed in the sincerity of the feelings of Irina surrounded by Lyubshin, Svetlana openly accused her rival of self-interest and the desire to bask in the rays of someone else’s glory, but he did not there was nothing to do – Lyubshin was determined and wanted a divorce.

Later, Svetlana recalled that the marriage began to crack when Stanislav Andreevich moved to the Moscow Art Theater and began to drink more often – the actors’ joint libations were strongly encouraged by then artistic director Oleg Efremov theater. If Svetlana still found it difficult to leave her husband, the adult sons of the couple reacted to the divorce with understanding – both believed that their parents were still too different people.

The eldest son of the actor became a cameraman, the youngest tried his hand at acting, but eventually went into business. But Lyubshina’s granddaughter continued the dynasty and entered VGIK.

Although at first everyone gave little time to Lyubshin’s romance with a young enchantress, these doubters were eventually put to shame. The actor celebrated with Irina first the 70th birthday, then the 80th birthday, and now the 90th birthday.

The feelings have been tested and the hard blows of fate. Already married to Irina in 2006, Lyubshin had a stroke, and it was the young woman who left the artist and helped him return to the stage.

Lyubshin continues to take to the stage of his native Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, in which he has been playing since 1981, and still breaks the applause. And Irina is always next to her husband and helps him in everything.

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