In 1914, after her father left for the front, her mother Evgenia Nikolaevna and her daughters settled in Moscow, where the sisters entered the gymnasium.

[5] Her first and last names are meaningful words in Russian: любовь means "love", and Орлова is the feminine form of орлов "eagle's".

In 1919–1922, she studied as a piano student at the Moscow Conservatory (Professor K. Kipp [ru] class) but did not graduate because she had to work as a music teacher and a pianist-illustrator of silent films in movie theaters (French: tapeur[6]) to support her parents.

Dmitri Shcheglov, a biography author, wrote in Love and Mask ('Lyubov i maska', 1997): "As an eternal irony and foresight of fate, the best performer of the roles of house servants and enthusiasts of Communist labor was a descendant of ten Russian Orthodox saints.

Two of them, Olga, the Grand Princess of Kiev, and Vladimir, the Grand Prince of Kiev, are among the Equal-to-apostles... Red Eagle in an azure-golden field, the House of Orlov's coat of arms, is also present on the Bezhetsk clan branch the actress belonged to..."[8] The Orlov family was partly saved from the worst form of repression, camps or deportation, and the Bolshevik "redistribution of property" only because even before the Revolution, her father Peter had lost all three of his estates at cards, and therefore there was practically nothing to take away.

Her quick promotion was fueled by Olga Baclanova's sudden departure from Russia and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko's eye for this type of female beauty.

Lunacharsky, now - GITIS), she decided to bring herself back to her previous form and perform Serpoletta's entrance aria on pointe.

[13] Alexander Hort, writer, wrote: "The audience was smitten: while dancing, Serpoletta stood up on pointe shoes, so graceful, airy, romantic!

And Orlova made a tactically verified move, she took the bull by the horns: the very first vocal number, Serpoletta's verses 'What a pity that an unsettling case pushed me to a different path!'

Orlova's performance in this comedy, very popular in the USSR, earned the young star the sympathy of Stalin and the title "Honorable actor of the RSFSR".

Her haters credited her success to the marriage of convenience and Stalin protection[17] In the next few years she starred in four popular movies which also became instant Soviet classics: Circus (1936), Volga-Volga (1938), Tanya (1940), and Springtime (1947).

[19] For all of her career, she was banned from making the records of her songs and performing on television, supposedly because of her "backstage war" with Klavdiya Shulzhenko, Leonid Utesov's choice of interest for Jolly Fellows.

[21] In 1926 or, according to her grandniece Nonna Golikova, in 1921, Lyubov Orlova married a Soviet economist Andrei Berzin (1893-1951), the deputy head of the administrative and financial department for the People's Commissariat of Agriculture.

Orlova had married to save her relatives from death but she absolutely didn't love her husband and had an abortion or a miscarriage that, highly likely, had left her barren for the rest of her life.

In 1979, Vasili's widow Galina Krylova married the mentally sick Grigori Aleksandrov to serve as his maid in exchange for a subsequent property and archive.

In the 1960s, another Soviet actress Tatiana Bestayeva [ru] was unsuccessfully recruited by the KGB, in order for her to inform the authorities about the luminaries of Mossovet Theatre: Lyubov Orlova, Rostislav Plyatt, and Gennadi Bortnikov.

[30] Orlova's movies include a decent amount of plot-defining in-jokes about the composers, (Beethoven in Jolly Fellows, Volga-Volga, Johann Sebastian Bach in Starling and Lyre), and a-la virtuoso grand piano performances (Circus, about virtuosity as a word with the previous meaning 'virtue', Springtime).

[36] Feodor Nikitich Romanov (1553-1633, Patriarch Filaret of Moscow, de facto ruler of Russia during the reign of his son, Mikhail) descended from the Rurik dynasty through a female line, his mother, Evdokiya Gorbataya-Shuyskaya was a Rurikid princess from the Shuysky branch, daughter of Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.

The last tsar Nicholas II was described as "limited, stupid" and "degenerate" even by the usually polite first Russian Nobel Prize winner, physiologist Ivan Pavlov.

[37] In 1936, following her role of a young mother in Circus, Orlova was given an order to participate, among the best-known women in the country, in the discussion, and, practically, in the approval of the law banning the abortion.

According to M. Kushnirov, the executive editor of the radio who prepared a text for her to read, in general, welcoming, of course, the wise project of the Stalin government "On mother and child, on family and abortion", the actress "has allowed herself to make some amendments and additions to it".

In Soviet society, there are many independent women, many professions in which a woman successfully competes with a man... Pregnancy will tear a woman out of her job, maybe at the very moment when she completes a grandiose project or prepares for a heroic flight, or finishes work over a big role for which she has spent several years of her life, and, perhaps, at this crucial moment of her life, her social and political biography, she is forced to give up everything and lose a year of time.

Now, these millions of lips are looking for the words of happiness that are unusual for them in order to glorify a new life, the Red Army, the Soviet government, the wise Stalin."

Her grandniece Nonna Golikova wrote: "In 1952, Lyubov Petrovna gave a concert in some border town in Western Ukraine, where, as we know, active anti-Russian sentiments and political movements have always existed.

In 1961, Orlova strongly implied her collaborative efforts in songwriting weren't credited,[19] highly likely, because of the strict rules about the non-members of the Union of Soviet Composers.

[51][52] In a 1999 VCIOM poll, Orlova was voted as the greatest "Russian Idol of the 20th Century" by 10%, the highest-rated woman, and 10th place overall with Yuri Gagarin atop with 30%.

Ten years later, in 2010, she finished 3rd with 7% of votes, behind figure-skater Irina Rodnina (9%) and ballerina Maya Plisetskaya (8%) only, on a 15th place overall with Yuri Gagarin atop with 35%.

And, probably, my parents were slightly disappointed when it turned out the art form I've mastered didn't give me a great success, or recognition, or fame, but... just a modest opportunity to accompany the films that were shown in cinema with my piano playing".

[1] Other biographies, including her grandniece's book, also don't mention Orlova's rare Ménière's disease as a reason for the career focus change.

[68][69] Another biography, the 1987 Lyubov Orlova in Art and Life book, listed her as a conservatory graduate with Prof. Felix Blumenfeld as her senior piano class teacher, in addition to Kipp.