Actress. A performer of both the stage and screen, she was considered Russia’s leading sex symbol of the 1940s. Tselikovskaya studied piano at the Gnesin School of Music before switching her interests to the field of acting. From 1937 to 1941 she attended the Shehiukin Theatrical School in Moscow, graduating three weeks prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. She appeared on stage in the theatrical productions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Much Ado about Nothing.” During the Second World War, she entertained soldiers of the Red Army fighting at the front lines. She made her film debut in the 1939 motion picture “Young Captains.” Her other film credits include: “Anton Ivanovich is Getting Angry” (1941), “Four Hearts” (1941), “Taxi to Heaven” (1943), “Ivan the Terrible, Part One” (as Czarina Anastasia Romanovna, 1944), “A Noisy Household” (1946), “Did we Meet Somewhere Before?” (1946), “The Grasshopper” (1955) and “Les” in 1987. In 1956 she was the recipient of the Finnish Film Academy’s Best Foreign Actress Award for her performance in “Poprygunya” (The Grasshopper), and was recognized as the People’s Actress of Russia in 1963. She died in Moscow from cancer. (bio by: Nils M. Solsvik Jr.)  Family links:  Spouses:  Karo Semenovich Alabyan (1897 – 1959)*  Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899 – 1981)*  Yuri Konstantinovich Alekseev-Meskhiev (1917 – 1946)* *Calculated relationship