Olga Baclanova

Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova (Russian: О́льга Влади́мировна Бакла́нова;pronounced Bahk LAH no Vah) 19 August 1893 – 6 September 1974) was a sultry Russian-born naturalized American actress of stage and screen, radio host and performer, operatic singer, and ballerina. She achieved prominence during the silent film era, after taking several years off her age and changing the spelling of her Russian surname from Baklanova. She was often billed under her last name only, as Baclanova, similarly to the surname-only nomenclature of her fellow countrywoman Nazimova.

An exotic blonde temptress, she was billed as the "Russian Tigress" and remains most noted by modern audiences for portraying the fictional Duchess Josiana in the Universal silent The Man Who Laughs and trapeze artist Cleopatra in Tod Browning's horror movie Freaks (1932), which features a cast of actual carnival sideshow freaks.

Early life and Moscow Arts Theatre

She was born on 19 August 1893. (other sources state, 1896, 1898 or 1900) in Moscow, Russia. Baclanova was the daughter of Vladimir Baklanoff and his wife Alexandra, herself an actress in early Russian films. Baclanova studied drama at the Cherniavsky Institute before being accepted into the prestigious Moscow Art Theatre with such contemporaries as Maria Ouspenskaya in 1912. Over the next decade she appeared in Russian films, and also performed extensively on stage, touring and performing in many countries of the world, in the 1930"s had a program called Olga Baclanova's Continental Review and she often appeared as a guest on radio programs singing songs in her native Russian, she had trained in operatic voice at the Moscow Arts Theatre. In 1925 she was given the award "Worthy Artist of the Republic" the highest soviet artist honour. Baklonava appeared in around 17 films in her native Russia, including th efirst Soviet agitprop. dil Bread, before heading t0 the United States