Baclanova studied drama at the Cherniavsky Institute[1] before being accepted into the Moscow Art Theatre with contemporaries such as Maria Ouspenskaya in 1912.

A statuesque blonde, Baclanova quickly established herself as a popular actress in American silent movies and achieved success with The Docks of New York in 1928, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

Later that year, she appeared in The Man Who Laughs as Duchess Josiana, the femme fatale love interest to Conrad Veidt's disfigured hero.

Her career was in decline when she was offered the role of the cruel circus performer Cleopatra in Tod Browning's film Freaks[7] (1932).

[8] In Russia, Baclanova's departure from the USSR made room for the success of Soviet movie star Lyubov Orlova, a struggling ex-pianist with a certain likeness to Olga.

In 1926, Orlova was promoted from a choir after two months in a theatre, by the heart-broken Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, a rumored lover or admirer of Baclanova, his favorite student.

The only time he cried [publicly], at the piano in the Art Theatre foyer, was when he had found out about Olga Vladimirovna Baclanova [emigration]...

I'm sure of this, not because I was there but because I was a friend of Sophia Pilyavskaya [ru] who was also closely connected to Nemirovich-Danchenko and could have known this from the wife of the famous director... Lyubov Orlova blossomed as Baclanova's substitute.