Who Are Marina Vlady's Children? Inside the Family Circle of the Celebrated French Actress
In 1970, Vlady married Vladimir Vysotsky, cementing a union that captivated the Soviet imagination. She was already an international star with leftist sympathies and a French Communist Party membership card; he was the underground voice of a generation, constantly battling censors at Moscow's Taganka Theatre.
The marriage did not produce children, but it reshuffled both their family worlds. Vysotsky had two sons, Arkady and Nikita, from his previous marriage to Lyudmila Abramova. Vlady brought Igor, Pierre, and Vladimir into this orbit. Her home in Maisons-Laffitte outside Paris became an enclave where Vysotsky recorded bootleg tapes, hosted dissidents, and wrote poetry away from Soviet surveillance.
Vlady spent significant political capital securing multi-entry visas for Vysotsky, allowing him to travel to Paris, Montreal, New York, and Tahiti. During these long visits, her three sons engaged directly with Vysotsky's thunderous guitar sessions in their suburban living room. Pierre learned chord structures directly from the Soviet bard, while Igor and young Vladimir treated him as an unconventional, fiery step-uncle who read Russian fairy tales with Shakespearean intensity.
Following Vysotsky’s death in Moscow in July 1980, Vlady protected his intellectual output. Her 1987 memoir, Vladimir, or the Aborted Flight (Владимир, или прерванный полет), became an instant bestseller across Europe and Russia, giving her sons an intimate public record of that turbulent decade.