Marina Vlady (born Marina de Poliakoff-Baidaroff; 10 May, 1938 - died 24 September, 2026) was a French actress who made her film debut at 11. She has appeared in more than 100 feature films and television productions. She arrived as the blond bombshell and was the main attraction in "La sorcière" (1956).
Catherine Marina de Poliakoff-Baïdaroff was born in Clichy on 10 May 1938, to White Russian immigrant parents. Her father, Vladimir Poliakoff, was an opera singer, and her mother, Militza, was a dancer. Her sisters, now all deceased, were the actresses Odile Versois, Hélène Vallier and Olga Baïdar-Poliakoff. The sisters began acting as children and, for a while, pursued a ballet career.
Vlady won the Best Actress Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival for The Conjugal Bed. In 1965, she was a member of the jury at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.
She starred in Jean-Luc Godard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), and later portrayed the insightful and protective stepmother in the Italian film The Flavor of Corn (1986). A rare English language role was as Kate Percy in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1966).
Her television credits include the 1983 mini-series La Chambre des Dames.
In 1971, Vlady signed the Manifesto of the 343, which publicly declared she had an abortion as a way to advocate for abortion, even though the procedure was illegal in France at the time.
Vlady and her partner Léon Schwartzenberg participated in the protests against deportations of Arab workers from France. She accepted a role in a film about a gay couple from Iran.
From 1955 to 1959, Vlady was married to actor/director Robert Hossein. From 1963 to 1966, she was married to Jean-Claude Brouillet, a French entrepreneur, owner of two airlines and member of the French Resistance.
Vlady's third husband was the Soviet poet and songwriter, Vladimir Vysotsky; they were married and lived in Moscow from 1969 until his death in 1980. Vlady wrote Vladimir, or the Aborted Flight, a memoir of her relationship with Vladimir Vysotsky. For a decade, the couple maintained a long-distance relationship as Vlady compromised her career in France in order to spend more time in Moscow, and his friends pulled strings for him to travel abroad. She eventually joined the Communist Party of France, which essentially gave her an unlimited-entry visa into the Soviet Union, and provided Vysotsky with some immunity against prosecution by the government. The problems of his long-distance relationship with Vlady inspired several of Vysotsky's songs.
She also lived with French oncologist Léon Schwartzenberg from 1980 until his death in 2003.
Vlady died on 24 September 2026, aged 88. According to a statement by her children, she died "at home, surrounded by her loved ones and her animals".
as Self (archive footage)
as Juliette Jeanson
as Self
as Self
as Self
as Self
as Alice Trajan
as Zia Duchessa(2 eps)
as Yolande
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
as Self
as Zia Duchessa
as Natacha(3 eps)
as Self
as Self - Narrator (voice)
as Self
as Self(2 eps)
as Simone
as Alexandrine Garlande(7 eps)
as Self
as Narrator(1 ep)
as Yekaterina II - empress
as Anna
as Anna(4 eps)
as Sugrobina
as Anna(4 eps)
as Self
as Ljuba
as (voice)
as Duilio's Stepmother
as Chantal
as Self(2 eps)
as Self(1 ep)
as Self(1 ep)
as Maria
as Mme Muller
as Natacha Tataïev
as Florence
as Rosa Vonaparte
as Marco Vovchok(1 ep)
as Rapesku(14 eps)
as Margarita Ivanovna
as Mathilde Brunel(10 eps)
as Mme Beurdeley
as La marquise d'Espard
as Self(4 eps)
as La mère de la petite fille
as Isabelle de Brabant
as Lucrezia
as Jacqueline, the dentist
as Kim
as Perizadah
as Mária
as Self(1 ep)
as Mme Losseray
as The Marchioness of Parabère
as Pauline, la dame en blanc(5 eps)
as Self(2 eps)
as Self(1 ep)
as Self(1 ep)
as Christiane
as Millie Thulle
as Marthe Tarset
as Françoise Legrand
as Self(1 ep)
as Véronique
as Imma the cashier
as Maria
as Lika Mizinova
as Marie
as Juliette Jeanson
as Mona
as Self (uncredited)
as Eva Wilson
as Self
as Nicole
as Kate Percy
as Nicole
as Self(1 ep)
as La radio taxi girl
as Isabelle
as Catherine Dupré
as Regina
as Ellie
as Odile Marcenat
as Catherine
as Catherine Lartigue - la Femme (segment "L'orgueuil")
as Comtesse Dranitsky
as Juliette
as Else
as Princess of Clèves
as Hélène Chalmers
as Catherine Desroches
as Elle
as Self
as Eva Lecain
as Eva
as Lili Marcellin
as Dédée
as Aino [Ina, US version]
as Self(2 eps)
as Eva
as Sophie Brulard
as Juliette
as Fulvia
as Angela Cafalla
as Celine
as Caroline Esterhazy
as La Princesse
as Liliane Noblet
as Lucia Giardano
as La fanciulla amata
as Annette
as Marisa
as Graziella, figlia del conte Terzi
as Gemma Vianello
as Eljay
as La petite Jacqueline (as Marina)
as Jacqueline
as Quarta sorella
as Marie-Tempête
