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Olga Baclanova
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| Olga Baclanova | |
| Birth name | Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova |
| Born | August 19, 1896 Moscow, Russia |
| Died | September 6, 1974 (aged 78) Vevey, Switzerland |
Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova (August 19, 1896 – September 6, 1974) was a Russian-born American actress.
Born in Moscow, Russia, Baclanova was the daughter of Vladimir Baklanoff and his wife Alexandra, herself an actress in early Russian films. Baclanova studied drama at the Cherniavsky Institute in Russia before being accepted into the prestigious Moscow Art Theatre in 1912. Over the next decade she appeared in Russian films, and also performed extensively on stage, touring and performing in many countries of the world.
During a 1925 performance in New York she defected and decided to follow a life and career in the United States. A statuesque blonde, Baclanova quickly established herself as a popular actress in American silent movies and achieved a notable success with The Docks of New York (1928). That same year, she appeared in The Man Who Laughs and looked eerily like the later music and film star Madonna in that film: the resemblance is extraordinary enough to shock modern audiences. The introduction of talking films proved difficult for her, as audiences did not respond to her heavy Russian accent. She no longer secured leading roles, and was relegated to supporting parts. Her career was in decline when she was offered the role of the cruel circus performer Cleopatra in the 1932 Tod Browning-directed film Freaks, a horror movie by the director of Dracula that featured actual carnival freaks (pinheads, etc.). The film was highly controversial, to put it mildly, and only screened briefly before being yanked from distribution and locked away in a vault, disappearing from view for three decades. It would be thirty years before Freaks achieved a vocal following as arguably the most talked-about cult film ever. The movie did not revive her film career, which ended in 1943.
Baclanova worked extensively on stage in London's West End and in New York, for about ten years from the mid 1930s.
After her retirement she settled in Vevey, Switzerland where she died at age 78 after several years of poor health.