Eugenie Leontovich

Eugenie Leontovich, born Yevgeniya Konstantinovna Leontovitch in Podolsk on March 21 or April 3, around 1900, was a Russian-American actress, dramatist, and acting teacher whose Broadway career spanned from 1922 to 1961. The daughter of Konstantin Leontovitch, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, she trained at Moscow's Imperial School of Dramatic Art before studying under Meyerhold at the Moscow Art Theatre, which she later joined. Her three brothers, all Army officers like their father, were killed by the Bolsheviks during the Revolution. She arrived in New York City in 1922 and began the work of learning English. That same year she joined a touring company of the musical Blossom Time, traveling extensively across the United States. She became a naturalized United States citizen on September 5, 1929.

Her Broadway debut came in 1922 in Revue Russe, where she appeared alongside Gregory Ratoff, whom she married on January 19, 1923. Following her national tour in Blossom Time, she was cast as Grusinskaia in the Broadway adaptation of Vicki Baum's novel Grand Hotel, which opened in 1930. The production was later filmed with Greta Garbo in the role Leontovich had originated. She next took on the role of Lily Garland in Twentieth Century, a comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, performing the part from December 29, 1932, through May 20, 1933. She also appeared as the Archduchess Tatiana in Tovarich, a comedy about Russian aristocrats working as domestic servants in Paris, which brought her to London's Lyric Theatre in 1935 for a highly successful debut with Cedric Hardwicke as her co-star.

During World War II, Leontovich appeared on Broadway in Dark Eyes, a comedy she co-wrote with Elena Miramova about three Russian exiles living in New York. The play was subsequently produced in London after the war with Eugenia Delarova and Irina Baronova. In 1936 she played Shakespeare's Cleopatra at the New Theatre in London, and in 1947 she returned to London in Caviar to the General, a farce she co-wrote in which she played a female Russian general. In the years that followed, she relocated to Los Angeles, where for five years she operated her own theatre, The Stage, as both producer and performer.

In 1954, Leontovich created the role of the Dowager Empress in Anastasia on Broadway, a part later played by Helen Hayes in the film version. She also appeared on Broadway in Bitter Oleander, Obsession, and A Call on Kuprin. Her performance in William Saroyan's The Cave Dwellers earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Play in 1958. In 1972, she adapted Anna Karenina for an off-Broadway production titled Anna K., in which she also performed.

Beyond her stage work, Leontovich appeared in a small number of films, including Four Sons (1940), The Men in Her Life (1941), Anything Can Happen (1952), The World in His Arms (1952), The Rains of Ranchipur (1955), and Homicidal (1961). She also appeared in two episodes of the television series Naked City, one of which featured her former Anastasia co-star Viveca Lindfors, a personal friend. For seven years during the 1960s, she served as artist in residence at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, and she taught acting in both California and New York. Her students addressed her as Madame. Both of her marriages, to Paul Sokolov and to Gregory Ratoff, ended in divorce, and she had no children. Leontovich died on April 2, 1993, in New York City.