Ekaterina Vasilyevna Zelyonaya (); ( — 1 April 1991, Moscow), better known by her stage name Rina Zelyonaya, was a Soviet actress, singer and comedian. She was named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1970. Biography Ekaterina Zelyonaya was born in Tashkent (modern-day Uzbekistan) into a Russian family of modest means, the third of four children. Her rare surname which translates from Russian as Green had been often taken for a pseudonym by people, just like her stage name Rina (short for Ekaterina). Her paternal grandfather Ivan Kuzmich Zelyoniy was a member of the Tashkent City Duma. According to the actress, her parents didn't fit each other at all. Her mother Nadezhda Fyodorovna Zelyonaya was given away to marriage at the age 16. She was absolutely careless and couldn't plan family budget which led to grand scandals involving her husband – Vasily Ivanovich Zelyoniy, a low-ranking official, a stingy and generally unsympathetic man, as Rina described him. After he was transferred to Moscow, Rina entered a prestigious gymnasium for girls despite the lack of money. During the October Revolution she entered the Moscow Theatre School where she studied for two years. Among her teachers were Maria Blumenthal-Tamarina, Illarion Pevtsov and Nikolai Radin. Hunger and the lack of job made her seek other options. By that time her father had been assigned with restoration of storage facilities in Odessa. Rina along with her mother and younger sister decided to join him and traveled to Odessa, but it turned out Vasily Zelyoniy had left the family for another woman. Early popularity Rina got sick with typhus along the way and as soon as she recovered, she joined the Odessa KROT theatre led by Viktor Tipot and Vera Inber, and that's where her career really started. After a while she returned to Moscow, performed in night cabarets with songs and musical numbers, and in 1924 became an actress of the Moscow Satire Theatre. From 1930 on she started performing with stand-up shows. She became popular on account of her ability to imitate the speech of children. Although she appeared briefly in such well-known films as The Foundling (1939), for which she also co-wrote the script, Zelyonaya earned her living by touring the country and performing humorous skits from the life of children. She also provided the voice for cartoon characters and radio shows. During the Great Patriotic War she visited the frontline and