Many Russian women have achieved success in Hollywood, but some of them are known only in America. Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova is one of those actresses whose name is unjustly forgotten. Born in 1896, she dedicated herself to the theater from a young age and later began a career in film, becoming a successful professional actress by 1925. A new chapter in her life began after emigrating to the USA.

In 1927, Baklanova made her debut in the film "The Dove," a melodrama about the love between a Mexican singer and a young caballero. She was noticed and began to be invited to other projects. Soon she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. Her first significant work in America was the film "The Wolf of Wall Street," which tells the story of an enterprising broker from New York. Paramount had high hopes for this film, but during editing, the sound studio completely burned down. Despite this, the company decided to take a risk and offered the actors to re-dub the film. The experiment was successful: Baklanova voiced her character with a slight Russian accent and performed the song "Love Take Heart." The film did well at the box office, and audiences were thrilled with Baklanova's performance, the new star of Hollywood.

In the early 1930s, Olga Vladimirovna began working with the legendary MGM studio, where her film career effectively came to an end. She starred in the provocative film "Freaks," where her character Cleopatra performed in a traveling circus, cohabited with dwarfs, and had a lover on the side. The film was filled with intrigues, unexpected twists, and dramatic scenes. The public found it vulgar, and in some states, "Freaks" was banned from theaters. Due to this scandal, Baklanova was invited to films less frequently, and she returned to the theater. She was only remembered in the 1960s when previously banned films began to be shown again. "Freaks" received high praise and was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.