Vija Artmane (born Alīda Artmane; 21 August 1929 – 11 October 2008) was a Latvian theatre and cinema actress.
Contents
Life and career
Childhood
Vija Artmane was born as Alīda Artmane at the time when Latvia was a sovereign nation. Her father, Fricis Arnolds Artmanis, of partial Baltic German ancestry, died in an accident at the age of 19, just four months before she was born. Her mother Anna Regīna Zaborska, of Polish heritage, survived as a single mother by doing seasonal agricultural jobs. As a young girl, Artmane grew up playing in the fields; she was fond of wildflowers and learned to make flower arrangements and dolls in the Latvian traditional style. While her mother worked for a landlord, her master sent young Artmane to study music and dance at a ballet class for a couple of years. However, at the age of 10, young Artmane became a shepherd girl. She worked with a herd of cows for over five years, and survived until the end of the Second World War. In 1946, she graduated from secondary school and had a dream of becoming a lawyer in order to make the world a better place. At the same time, she was involved in amateur acting at her school, and became interested in film and theatre. Eventually, her passion for acting prevailed.
