Rina Zelyonaya

Rina Zelyonaya (born Yekaterina Vasilyevna Zelyonaya) was born in Tashkent in 1901; sources differ on the exact date (25 October or 7 November). When her father was transferred to Moscow the family moved there, and she studied at a Moscow gymnasium. During the Civil War the family was in Odessa, where she worked at the KROT theatre and took her stage name.

In 1919 she graduated from the Moscow theatre school. From 1921 she appeared at the Balaganchik in Petrograd, then at the Nerydai cabaret, from 1924 at the Moscow Satire Theatre, from 1928 at the Theatre of Reviews at the House of the Press, in 1929–1931 at the Moscow and Leningrad music halls, and in 1938–1941 at the Moscow Miniature Theatre.

On screen she appeared in Road to Life (1931), The Foundling (1939, which she co-wrote with Agniya Barto), The Bright Path (1940) and Spring (1947). She was later known for Cheryomushki (1962), Three Fat Men (1966) and as Mrs Hudson in the Soviet Sherlock Holmes films (1979–1986).

She voiced many animated films and radio plays: the Baby Elephant in the 1967 cartoon, Doctor Pilyulkin in the Neznayka series, and Tortila the turtle in the 1975 film The Adventures of Buratino.

During the war she gave concerts at the front and received the Order of the Red Star in 1944. She became Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1945 and People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1970. Rina Zelyonaya died in Moscow on 1 April 1991, aged 89, and is buried at Vvedenskoye Cemetery.