[citation needed] At the graduation prom she met Vladimir Kholodny, who was then a student, an editor of a daily sport newspaper and a race-driver, said to be one of the early Russian car racers.

She approached Vladimir Gardin, a leading Russian film director, who cast her in a minor role in his grand production of Anna Karenina.

[4] Song of Triumphant Love was an enormous success and Yevgeni Bauer immediately started shooting his another movie starring Kholodnaya.

It was a melodrama Flame of the Sky (Plamya Neba) about guilty love of a young woman married off to an old widower, and his son.

At first it was hard for Vera to convey complex psychological nuances[6] and so she imitated the acting of Asta Nielsen but gradually developed her own style.

Vera's extravagant costumes and large gray eyes made her an enigmatic screen presence which fascinated audiences across Imperial Russia.

At the Fire Side (1917) was her massive commercial success: the movie was run in cinemas until 1924, when the Soviet authorities ordered many of the Kholodnaya features destroyed.

[15] The film's success prompted its director Petr Chardynin to make a sequel, Forget about the Fire, the Flame's Gone Out (1917), which was released during the October revolution.

Her acting abilities in this film were applauded by Konstantin Stanislavski, who welcomed Vera to join the troupe of the Moscow Art Theatre.

[citation needed] By this time, the actress had determined to move with her film company to Odessa, where she died at the age of 25 in the 1918 flu pandemic.

On learning about her death, Alexander Vertinsky, wrote one of his most poignant songs, "Your fingers smell of church incense, and your lashes sleep in grief..." A director with whom she had worked for several years filmed her large funeral.

A year later, her image was depicted on a postage stamp and in 2003 a life-size bronze statue of her was erected in Odessa, created by the artist Alexander P. Tokarev.