Biography

Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova (nee Knipper) was born on September 9, 1868, in Glasov, Russian Empire, into the family of a German origin. She received an excellent private education and was bilingual, being fluent in Russian and German.

She was one of the original 39 founding members of the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. She also was the favorite actress of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the founders of the Moscow Art Theatre. There her stage partner was Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vasili Kachalov, Boris Dobronravov, and many other leading Russian actors. She was a student and the mistress of Nemirovich-Danchenko before she met writer Anton Chekhov.

Olga Leonardovna met the playwright Anton Chekhov in 1898, when she was given the leading role in his play 'Chaika' (The Seagull). She brilliantly played the role on the opening of the first season at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. She also starred as 'Masha' in 'Tri sestry' (The Three Sisters). Olga Leonardovna married Anton Chekhov in 1901. At that time he was already suffering from tuberculosis. In January, 1904, she starred as 'Ranevskaya' in the premiere of 'Vishnevy sad' (The Cherry Orchard) at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, with singer 'Feodor Chaliapine Sr.', writer Maxim Gorky, and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in attendance.

Six months later, after a tremendous effort to save his life in a German hospital, her famous husband, writer Anton Chekhov died of a lung haemorrhage. Olga Leonardovna never managed to have a child with her husband Anton Chekhov. She hosted and educated her niece, also named Olga Knipper, who will later become the famous film-star Olga Tschechowa in the Nazi Germany after her brief marriage to actor Michael Chekhov, who was the nephew of Anton Chekhov.

Under the name of Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, she continued successful work on stage with the Moscow Art Theatre Company for the rest of her life. She did not play many film roles, mostly due to the influence of her teachers, Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. They strongly believed that live stage acting was a superior form of art. For that reason both Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko discouraged their stage actors of the Moscow Art Theatre from working in motion pictures.

While on a tour in Kharkov, Ukraine, Olga Leonardovna was arrested on stage in 1917, during her performance of 'The Cherry Orchard'. She suffered from all kinds of violence during the Russian Revolution of 1917. She was under suspicion, because her brother Konstantin Knipper was the ranking officer to Aleksandr Kolchak in the Russian White Army. Her nephew Lev Knipper was also an officer with the Russian White Army fighting against the Bolshevik communists. Olga Leonardovna survived through the terrible years of spy-mania in the Soviet Union under he dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. At that time her film-star niece Olga Tschechowa was playing dangerous games as a personal friend of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels in the Nazi Germany.

She was greeted by her famous niece Olga Tschechowa, who was secretly flown to Moscow from Germany and discreetly attended the performance of 'The Cherry Orchard' at the Moscow Art Theatre, in May of 1945. They were neither allowed to talk, nor even to approach each other. At the end of the play Olga Tschechowa was immediately walked out of the Moscow Art Theatre. Aunt Olga Leonardovna was stunned by the surprise appearance of her film-star niece and collapsed in the backstage. Later fearful aunt Olga Leonardovna destroyed all the Chekhov family photographs in the fire. She worked at the Moscow Art Theatre through her entire acting career, mostly under the directorship of her teacher and lover Nemirovich-Danchenko.

Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova was honored with the title of the People's Artist of the Russian Federation. She survived three Russian Revolutions and two World Wars. She outlived her contemporaries, who were fighting against each other, but were admirers of her acting talent, such as the last Russian Emperor Tsar Nicholas II, the first Communist leader Vladimir Lenin, and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Olga Leonardovna died on March 22, 1959, in Moscow, Russia.