Lyubov Sergeevna Sokolova, also known as Lyubov Sokolova, was born on July 31, 1921, in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, USSR, to an artisan furniture maker father and a saleswoman mother.
Young Sokolova was fascinated with acting and became involved in the drama class at her school. She made her first public performance in 1937, playing a man's role in the drama by Alexander Pushkin.
In 1940, she became a student at the Gertsen Institute in Leningrad, and also began looking for an acting job. She passed a rigorous acting test with her performance of Nina's monologue from 'Chaika' (The Seagull),by Anton Chekhov, and was admitted to the Leningrad Institute of Theatre and Cinematography.
Sokolova married fellow actor Georgi Arapovsky, and her life and career looked promising. However, during World War II, Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis, causing starvation and death among its citizens. Sokolova and her husband had to work for food, and soon her husband and other relatives died of starvation.
She starved to unconsciousness, but was miraculously saved by her fellow students. In 1942, she escaped from Leningrad to her parents in Ivanovo, and then went to Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, where she became a student at the State Institute of Cinematography.
Sokolova was described as an innocent and sincere person, and her purity of heart was revealed in a situation in 1940, when she refused to work with a powerful writer/director due to his obscene jokes.
Upon her graduation from VGIK in 1946, she worked with the Moscow Theatre-studio of Film actors. From 1951-1956, she worked for the Red Army Theatre Company in East Germany. In 1958, she married director Georgiy Daneliya, and they had one son, Nikolai Daneliya.
Sokolova played over 370 roles in Russian and international films, working with many famous directors, including Sergey Gerasimov, Mark Donskoy, Lev Kulidzhanov, Igor Talankin, Vasiliy Shukshin, Stanislav Rostotskiy, Andrei Konchalovsky, and Nikita Mikhalkov.
In her later career, Sokolova was frequently cast as a good-hearted Russian mother, emphasizing her mellow voice and sincere smile. Her "sons" and "daughters" in film included many Russian film stars.
Sokolova was famous for her unconditioned generosity and was like a surrogate mother to many less fortunate actors and actresses. She was honored with the title of the People's Artist of the USSR in 1990, and received numerous awards and decorations.
Lyubov Sokolova passed away on June 6, 2001, in Moscow.
