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. However, Orlova's father, an engineer and class enemy, was officially banned as an employee. In September 1926, she was hired as a choir singer by the Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre Music Studio finally deciding to become an actress, not a pianist. She received her first solo role in November, the same year. 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. In 1932, she received her first leading roles in La Périchole and Les cloches de Corneville. Despite her success with the public, vocal and acting training in a theatre with , Orlova wasn't noticed by the press and was criticized by her colleagues for not having a real singing voice (Faina Ranevskaya, her close friend, used to say "Orlova is a gorgeous actress for sure. But her voice! When she sings it sounds like somebody is urinating in an empty bucket.") However, Orlova had her "trick". Remembering her student years (and she studied at the choreography department of the Moscow Theater College named after A.V. Lunacharsky, now - GITIS), she decided to bring herself back to her previous form and perform Serpoletta's entrance aria on pointe. 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!' she performed, dancing on her fingers." In the future, no one was able to repeat this trick, it has stayed as a semi-legendary fact of history. In 1933 she met the novice director Grigory Alexandrov, who was casting actors for his movie Jolly Fellows (1934), and married him. 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". It had caused the first wave of the so-called "Orlova syndrome", a Soviet psychiatric term describing women who wanted to be like Orlova. They diligently lightened their hair and self-styled themselves as relatives to the idol. According to her relatives, Orlova secretly loathed Joseph Stalin reacted to