Olga Borisovna Barnet (Russian: О́льга Бори́совна Ба́рнет; 3 September 1951 – 25 June 2021) was a Soviet and Russian actress who worked at the Moscow Art Theatre. She made her film debut as Mother in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972). She also appeared in the 1979 film Takeoff.
Biography
Barnet was born into the family of film director Boris Barnet and actress Alla Kazanskaya.
She graduated from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute in 1972 and joined the company of the Moscow Art Theatre. She became one of its leading actresses and performed dozens of roles. She also appeared at the Oleg Tabakov Theatre.
In the final period of her life, Barnet was seriously ill and had not appeared at the Moscow Art Theatre for a long time. According to her colleagues, she had lost considerable weight during the preceding year and complained of poor health. Shortly before her death, she told writer Tatyana Bronzova that doctors had been unable to establish a diagnosis.
Barnet died on 25 June 2021.
Her former husband was director Valery Fokin. They studied at the Shchukin Theatre School and were briefly married while they were students.