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Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova (; – 6 September 1974), known professionally as Olga Baclanova, was a Russian-born actress who found success in Hollywood films, as well as stage roles in the US and the United Kingdom, she was mainly billed as an exotic blonde temptress, who was given the title of the "Russian Tigress".
Baclanova, a student of the Moscow Art Theatre spent her early years in her native land appearing in theatre production and silent film from 1914 until 1918, reducing her age by several years and changing the spelling of her surname Baklanova. She was often billed under her surname only, similar to her fellow countrywoman Nazimova.Mank, Gregory W. (1999). Women in horror films, 1930s, p. 118. McFarland; Vazzana, Eugene Michael (2001). Silent film necrology, p. 25. McFarland;
She emigrated to the United States in 1925, and started appearing on stage and subsequently in Hollywood films, where she was celebrated for the Universal Pictures silent The Man Who Laughs as the evil Duchess Josiana and in Tod Browning's cult-classic horror film Freaks (1932) at MGM, as scheming circus trapeze artist, Cleopatra.
Over the next decade she appeared in Russian films, and also performed extensively on stage, touring and performing in many countries of the world. She was a feature actress of plays by Ibsen, Chekhov and Turgenev, and the M.A.T productions of Shakespeare, Dickins and Berger.
In the 1930s, Baclanova, who had vocal training at the Moscow Arts Theatre, had a program called Olga Baclanova's Continental Review, and she often appeared as a guest on radio programs singing songs in her native Russian, often with the F. Zarkerich Orchestra and also made recordings, including an album titled the "Olga Baclanova Album", released in 1946, by Unique Records
In 1925 she was given the award "Merited Artist of the Republic", the highest Soviet artist honour. Baclanova appeared in around 17 films during her career in Russia.
The introduction of sound film proved difficult for Baclanova due 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 Tod Browning's film Freaks (1932). This horror movie, which featured actual carnival , was highly controversial and screened only briefly before being withdrawn. It would be 30 years before Freaks gained a cult film following. The movie did not revive Baclanova's film career, which ended in 1943.
Baclanova worked extensively on stage in London's West End and in New York, for about 10 years starting in the mid-1930s. In 1943 she appeared in Claudia at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, Washington.
In Russia, Baclanova's departure from the USSR made room for the success of Soviet movie star Lyubov Orlova, a struggling ex-pianist with a certain likeness to Olga. In 1926, Orlova was promoted from a choir after two months in a theatre, by the heart-broken Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, a rumored lover or admirer of Baclanova, his favorite student.
Fashion historian Alexandre Vassiliev remembered in 2018: "He Vladimir loved her Olga in letters, he was thinking deeply about her. The only time he cried publicly, at the piano in the Art Theatre foyer, was when he had found out about Olga Vladimirovna Baclanova emigration... He really began to cry. I'm sure of this, not because I was there but because I was a friend of who was also closely connected to Nemirovich-Danchenko and could have known this from the wife of the famous director... Lyubov Orlova blossomed as Baclanova's substitute."
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