Maria Ouspenskaya

Life and career

Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russian Empire, and studied singing in Warsaw, Poland, and acting in Moscow. She was a founding member of the First Studio, a theatre studio of the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre. There she was trained by Konstantin Stanislavsky and his assistant Leopold Sulerzhitsky.

The Moscow Art Theatre traveled widely throughout Europe, and when it arrived in New York City in 1922, Ouspenskaya decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade. She taught acting at the American Laboratory Theatre and in 1929, together with Richard Boleslawski, her colleague from the Moscow Art Theatre, she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York City. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was Anne Baxter, then an unknown teenager.

Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya stayed away from Hollywood until her school's financial problems forced her to look for ways to repair her finances. According to ads from Popular Song magazine in the 1930s, around this time Ouspenskaya also opened the Maria Ouspenskaya School of Dance on Vine Street in Los Angeles. Her pupils included Marge Champion, the model for Disney's Snow White.

In spite of her marked Russian accent, she did find work in Hollywood, playing European characters of various national origins. Her first Hollywood role was in Dodsworth (1936), which brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. (Her onscreen appearance in that film was one of the briefest ever to garner a nomination.) She received a second Oscar nomination for her role in Love Affair (1939).

She portrayed Maleva, an old Gypsy fortuneteller in the horror films The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Other films in which she appeared were: The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Beyond Tomorrow (1940), Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), and Kings Row (1942).

Death

Ouspenskaya died several days after suffering a stroke and receiving severe burns in a house fire, which was allegedly caused when she fell asleep while smoking a cigarette. She was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Famous quotes

In the film The Wolf Man, Maleva, The Gypsy Woman (played by Maria Ouspenskaya) utters her iconic quote as the Wolf Man is dying:

"The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Now you will have peace for eternity."

In popular culture

In the Truman Capote novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly opines diamonds "only look right on the really old girls" and mentions Maria Ouspenskaya.

In Season One's "What's in a Middle Name?" episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show", (1961-1965), characters Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrell have an animated discussion of baby names, as follows:

Buddy: "I got it! I got it!"

Sally: "What is it?"

Buddy: "Humphrey!"

Sally: "Get rid of it!"

Buddy: "What's the matter with Humphrey? Bogart didn't do bad with it."

Sally: "Well, Maria Ouspenskaya didn't do bad either, but would you name YOUR kid Maria Ouspenskaya?!"

Buddy: "No, and for only one reason."

Sally: "Why?"

Buddy: "Because my brother named HIS kid that!"