Crimea, also in Baku, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk and other cities. In 1931 Ranevskaya acted at the Chamber Theater. The film Pyshka (known as Boule de Suif in the U.S.), directed by Mikhail Romm, marked her debut as a film actress in 1934. It was a silent black and white film based on the novel Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant, in which she starred as Madame Loiseau. Although the film was silent, Ranevskaya learned several sayings of Madame Loiseau in French from the original novel by Maupassant. Romain Rolland, a French writer who visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s, loved the film, and his favorite actor in the movie was Faina Ranevskaya. At his request, the Pyshka (Boule de Suif) was shown in French cinemas, where it became a box-office success. Ranevskaya played on stage of the Central Academic Theatre of the Russian Army (1935-1939), Drama Theater, now Mayakovsky Theater (1943-1949), Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre (1955-1963), and finally Mossovet Theater (1949-1955, 1963-1983), where she worked with Yury Zavadsky. The actress was awarded the Stalin Prize for outstanding creative achievements on stage in 1949, and in 1951 for her work in the film U nih est' Rodina (They Have Their Motherland), directed by Vladimir Legoshin and Alexandre Feinzimmer. In 1961 Faina Ranevskaya was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR. The actress died in 1984 in Moscow and was buried at the Donskoe Cemetery. A memorial plate dedicated to Ranevskaya was placed on her birthhouse in the city of Taganrog on August 29, 1986. In 1992 British "Who's Who" encyclopedia named Ranevskaya among the world's Top Ten Actors of the 20th century. That was done despite the fact that the actress had never played a major part in a movie: all her roles were supporting ones. In a newspaper article, one of the Soviet movie industry apparatchiks explained her lack of main roles by Faina Ranevskaya's "typical Semitic" face features. On May 16, 2008, a Ranevskaya Monument was inaugurated in Taganrog in front of actress's birth house on Ulitsa Frunze 10 within the framework of the International Ranevskaya Theater Festival "The Great Province"*. In 2017 it was announced that Faina Ranevskaya's birth house in Taganrog will re-open its doors as a museum. Filmography 1934 — Boule de Suif (Пышка) as Madame Loiseau 1938 — The Ballad of Cossack Golota (Дума про казака Голоту) 1939 — Man in a