[4] Their childhood was happy, growing up in a bi-lingual family, Anastasiya enjoyed intellectually stimulating environment and the rich cultural atmosphere of her parents' circle.

[6] Vertinsky never scolded his daughters for failures, of which there were many because, as Anastasiya later remembered, she was more concerned at the time with exploring her dad's vast library than with her school studies.

[8] Young Anastasiya Vertinskaya was thinking of a career in linguistics, but things changed overnight in 1961 when the then sixteen-year-old was approached personally by the film director Aleksandr Ptushko for the role of Assol in Scarlet Sails.

Many of the future stars of Soviet cinema, including Vasily Lanovoy, Ivan Pereverzev, Sergey Martinson, and Oleg Anofriev, were in the cast, but, as critics noted, it was Vertinskaya's passionate performance that gave Scarlet Sails its flavour.

Cast as Gutierrez, a young woman in love with an amphibian man, Vertinskaya had to go through difficult late autumn underwater shooting sessions which she performed all by herself, without any stuntwomen involved.

[10] The role of Ophelia in the 1964 Grigori Kozintsev film Hamlet (starring Innokentiy Smoktunovsky) made Vertinskaya known internationally[5] and proved to be a turning point in her career.

While still at the Shchukin Theatre Institute, Vertinskaya received the role of Princess Bolkonsky in Sergey Bondarchuk's epic adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1966–1967).

[7] At MAT Vertinskaya mastered two roles from Anton Chekhov's repertoire, traditionally regarded as difficult: Nina Zarechnaya (The Seagull) and Yelena Andreyevna (Uncle Vanya).

"[12] Among her other triumphs of the time were Elmire in Molière's Tartuffe directed by Anatoly Efros, Liza Protasova (Lev Tolstoy's Living Corpse), Natasha (Alone with Everybody by Alexander Gelman), and Pat (Mother-of-Pearl Zinaida by Mikhail Roshchin).

[12] In 1989 Vertinskaya portrayed her own father in The Mirage or the Russian Pierrot's Way, a show that she herself wrote a script for and directed to mark the centennial birthday anniversary of Alexander Vertinsky.

First, in a theatrical experiment staged by director Anatoly Efros at Taganka Theatre, she played both Prospero and Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest, premiered at the Moscow Pushkin Museum.

[7] Highly original was her Olivia in Peter James's Sheffield Theatre production of Twelfth Night (1975), better known to Russian audiences for its televised version, which premiered in 1978.

To play comedy is always a pleasure, but here everybody was totally involved with what was going on, and what a troupe it was: Marina Neyolova, Oleg Tabakov, Yuri Bogatyryov, Kostya Raikin, Pyotr Shcherbakov, Nina Doroshina... With such stunning partners what you get is a fabulous atmosphere.

[14] The actress (according to the magazine 7 Days) portrayed her heroine "not as a sultry beauty but as a Grace, infinitely charming and funny, full of boredom-related whims and flashes of sincerity, the product of her lively, inquisitive mind.

"[15] Among the grand men of the Soviet theatre who praised Vertinskaya's unusual versatility was Anatoly Efros who once said the actress was "so physically natural and yet artistically graceful" that it was "almost unbelievable.

The film's director (and also a well-known actor) Mikhail Kozakov gave Vertinskaya (with whom he was having a passionate love affair at the time) total freedom of improvisation,[18] letting the two – Mona the character and Anastasiya the performer – almost merge.

You need to learn to turn your back on the scene that doesn't suit you," she later explained in an interview, speaking also of how relieved she felt at having dropped this 'everlasting worry' about the need of being continuously in demand.

[2][10] In her 2009 Izvestiya interview Vertinskaya expressed regret about how little worthy roles were there to be found in the modern Russian theatre and said she'd rather stay away from the stage at all than start playing "hitmen's mums" (one such suggestion she had received).

According to Nekhoroshev, "cast into the set of directorial ideas, as if they were the iron corset of her Elizabethan dress, the young actress couldn't breathe freely in the atmosphere of high art she'd been submerged in."

Critics noted a rare virtuosity with which "such a tragically fleeting, intrinsically unfulfilled character [had been made] strikingly vivid" and, even more extraordinary, continuously developing in the course of just four short scenes.

[21] Vertinskaya's work in Sovremennik (The Cherry Orchard, Valentin and Valentina) made critics speak of the "unique gracefulness" and the "technical virtuosity combined with deep psychological insight.

[12] In Tartuffe, she elevated her Elmyra "onto on an enormous aesthetic pedestal, presenting her as a kind of noblewoman of old French canvasses, inapproachable in her beauty and grace," according to the Theatre magazine.

[12] The progress Vertinskaya made "from the charming but one-dimensional Assol-Ophelia" to the versatile multi-faceted master of many genres, was enormous, argued the critic Tatyana Moskvina.

[24] Later Vertinskaya solidified her reputation as "the nation's most secretive movie treasure," avoiding journalists and making her private life the subject of rumours and insinuations.

Buoyed by the English director's democratic, improvisational approach and the energy of the star-studded cast, Vertinskaya fully realized her potential as a comedy actress.

"[28] Tatyana Moskvina agreed that "infernal shadows of Bulgakov's novel" perfectly suited Vertinskaya, a "natural-born Margarita," neither "good nor evil, just totally otherworldly."

On 19 December 2009, her 65th birthday, both President Dmitry Medvedev and then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent her personal telegrams, speaking of her "bright individuality", never waning popularity and "unique roles, extraordinarily powerful and deep.

"[29][30] In 1967 Vertinskaya married Nikita Mikhalkov, now a renowned Russian film director and actor, then a fellow student at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute.

And such films as Scarlet Sails, Amphibian Man, Hamlet and others are popular among viewers of several generations,” President D. A. Medvedev’s congratulatory telegram dated December 19, 2009 said.

“A talented actress endowed with a bright creative personality, both in the cinema and on the theater stage, you have created a whole gallery of unique images,[36] each of which is filled with amazing strength and depth,” V. V. Putin said in a telegram.