‏Irina Miroshnichenko‏

She was born Irina Petrovna Miroshnichenko on July 24, 1942, in Barnaul, Altai province, Soviet Union (now Russia). Her parents were evacuated from Moscow during the Second World War, and they returned back to their home in Moscow, when Miroshnichenko was a 3-year-old child. She received an excellent private education and was raised bilingual, fluent in French in addition to her native Russian. Young Miroshnichenko was fond of theatre, she was active in amateur drama club at her school. From 1961 - 1965 she studied acting under V. Markov at Moscow Art Theatre School of Acting, graduating in 1965 as an actress. She made her big screen debut in 1955, in Poprygunya (1955), by director Samson Samsonov. In 1963, while a student, she shot to fame with popular film Ya shagayu po Moskve (1964) by director Georgiy Daneliya.

Since 1965 Irina Miroshnichenko has been a permanent member of the troupe at Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT). There her stage partners were such renown Russian actors as Anatoli Ktorov, Olga Androvskaya, Angelina Stepanova, Mikhail Yanshin, Aleksey Gribov, Boris Livanov, Mikhail Kedrov, Mark Prudkin, Anastasiya Georgievskaya, Vasili Toporkov, Mikhail Bolduman, Pavel Massalsky, and the next generation of MKhAT actors - Oleg Efremov, Tatyana Doronina, Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Oleg Tabakov, Kristina Babushkina, Alla Pokrovskaya, Kira Golovko, Tatyana Lavrova, Iya Savvina, Nina Gulyaeva, Elena Panova, Darya Moroz, Olga Litvinova, Natalya Rogozhkina, Yekaterina Semyonova, Olga Yakovleva, Raisa Maksimova, Evgeniya Dobrovolskaya, Anastasiya Voznesenskaya, Andrey Myagkov, Stanislav Lyubshin, Vladimir Kashpur, Viktor Sergachyov, Vyacheslav Nevinnyy, Evgeniy Kindinov, Vladimir Krasnov, Dmitriy Nazarov, Sergey Sazontev, Avangard Leontyev, Igor Vasilev, Igor Vernik, Sergei Sosnovsky, Mikhail Porechenkov, Konstantin Khabenskiy, Valeri Khlevinsky, Aleksei Agapov, Valeriy Troshin, Mikhail Trukhin, Eduard Chekmazov, Aleksey Kravchenko, and Evgeniy Mironov among others. In the 1960s - 1980s Miroshnichenko made her best known stage appearances in Anton Chekhov's classic plays 'Chaika' (aka.. The Seagull), 'Dyadya Vanya' (aka.. Uncle Vanya), and 'Vishnevy sad' (aka.. The Cherry Orchard). She made acclaimed performances as Rose in 'Tatuirovannaya Roza' (aka.. The Rose Tattoo) by Tennessee Williams, and as Arkadina in the renewed staging of the Chekhov's 'Chaika' (aka.. The Seagull).

Irina Miroshnichenko was designated People's Actress of Russia, and received numerous awards from the Soviet and Russian governments. She was previously married to Lithuanian director Vytautas Zalakevicius. Outside of her acting profession Miroshnichenko developed a career as a singer, she recorded several popular hits. Irina Miroshnichenko is living in Moscow, Russia.