Svetlana Afanasyevna Svetlichnaya (15 May 1940 – 16 November 2024) was a Soviet and Russian actress most famous for her role in The Diamond Arm (1968).

Biography

Svetlichnaya was born in the city of Leninakan (now Gyumri), Armenian SSR, Soviet Union on 15 May 1940 to Afanasy Mikhailovich Svetlichnyi and Maria Feodorovna Zolotareva. During World War II the family lived in the town of Kolomak in the Kharkiv Oblast, then moved to the city Okhtyrka in the Sumy Oblast. Her father was in the military, and the family followed her father to his place of service. They lived in Ukraine and Austria, and at the age of 10 Svetlana lived on the Baltic coast, in the city of Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast. When Svetlana graduated from high school, her mother sent her to Moscow by a train. There Svetlana went to the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). At VGIK, she studied under Mikhail Romm, and his combined directing-acting course. During these studies, she studied with Valery Spout, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Galina Polskikh, Andron Konchalovsky, and Andrei Smirnov. On stage, she played a student Elisabetta Procter in Salem's process, Katyusha Maslova in Resurrection, and Maryanka in Cossacks. She played lead role in film The Cook. After her role of Anna Sergeyevna in The Diamond Arm, her phrase ''It's not my fault! He came by himself!'' became one of the most popular in the Soviet Union. Svetlichnaya died in Moscow on 16 November 2024, at the age of 84.

Selected films