{{Short description|Soviet actress (1917–1975)}} {{for|the earlier Russian woman composer|Valentina Serova (composer)}}
{{Infobox person | name = Valentina Serova | image = Валентина Серова.jpg | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = Valentina Serova in 1939. | birth_name = Valentina Polovikova | birth_date = 23 December 1917 | birth_place = Kharkiv, Ukraine | death_date = 12 December 1975 | death_place = | nationality = <!-- do not use per WP:INFONAT --> | other_names = | occupation = Actress | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = }}
'''Valentina Vasilyevna Serova''' ({{langx|ru|Валенти́на Васи́льевна Серо́ва}}; 23 December 1917 – 12 December 1975) was a Soviet film and theatre actress born in the Ukrainian People's Republic. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1946).<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema|author=Peter Rollberg|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2009|place=US|ISBN=978-0-8108-6072-8|pages=611-612}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://eternaltown.com.ua/content/view/7491/2/ |title=Валентина Васильевна Серова — Биографии, мемуары, истории |access-date=2016-04-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512095001/http://eternaltown.com.ua/content/view/7491/2/ |archive-date=2013-05-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Winner of the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1947).<ref>[https://www.izvestia.ru/culture/article3111578/ Мария Симонова, дочь актрисы Валентины Серовой: «Меня вернули маме после суда»] на сайте газеты Известия</ref>
==Early life== Serova was born '''Valentina Polovikova''' ''(Валентина Половикова)'' in 1917 in Kharkiv in the family of actress Klavdiya Polovikova (born Didenko) and hydrologist engineer Vasyl Polovyk. She had an affair with the head of Komsomol, Aleksandr Kosarev who was executed on 23 February 1939 during the Great Terror. She escaped being implicated. In 1938, she married her first husband, Anatoly Serov, a Soviet Air Force general, a test and fighter pilot.<ref>[http://www.kp.ru/daily/23502/39282/ Скандал вокруг сериала «Звезда эпохи»: Домогарову запретили читать стихи Симонова.]</ref> In 1939 Anatoli Serov died in an air crash together with Polina Osipenko preparing his type rating on the I-16UTI-4.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=654|title=Осипенко Полина Денисовна|website=www.warheroes.ru|language=ru|access-date=2018-02-06}}</ref>
==Career== In 1939, her film ''A Girl with a Temper'' had a huge success and she became one of the biggest film stars of the Soviet Union.
In 1940 she met Konstantin Simonov, a famous Soviet author, whom she married in 1943. Simonov's poem "Wait For Me", one of the most famous Russian war poems, is dedicated to her. She subsequently inspired a series of love poems, collected as "With You and Without You" ("С тобой и без тебя"). Their relationship was a troubled one. During the war it was widely rumored that Serova was a mistress of Gen. K.K. Rokossovski.<ref>[http://www.rg.ru/2013/12/11/serova-site.html 7 фактов о советской актрисе Валентине Серовой — Николай Грищенко — Российская газета<!-- The title was added by a bot -->]</ref>
While it's true that Serova, working as a hospital volunteer, met Rokossovski several times while he was recovering from a shrapnel wound in early 1942, it was not acknowledged.<ref>Braithwaite, Rodric; ''Moscow, 1941'', Vintage Books, New York, 2006, p 295</ref> Frontline soldiers saw the two often travelling together.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Pyl'cyn|first1=Alexander|title=Penal Strike|date=2006|publisher=Stackpole Books|isbn=9780811735995|page=162]|language=en}}</ref> Rokossovski also had another mistress at this time, Dr. Lt. Galina Talanova, with whom he had a daughter in 1945.<ref>Braithwaite, Rodric; ''Moscow, 1941'', Vintage Books, New York, 2006, p 208</ref>
==Later years and death== Her career declined after the 1940s. Simonov left her in 1957. She became an alcoholic and died in Moscow in 1975.<ref>Braithwaite, Rodric; ''Moscow, 1941'', Vintage Books, New York, 2006, p 314</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb name|0785327}} {{commons category}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serova, Valentina}} Category:1917 births Category:1975 deaths Category:Actresses from Kharkiv Category:Soviet film actresses Category:Honored Artists of the RSFSR Category:Recipients of the Stalin Prize Category:Recipients of the Order of the Badge of Honour
{{USSR-actor-stub}}