Remembering Marina Vlady, the cinema icon who embodied the ‘mysterious Russian soul’ for Europeans. To Soviet audiences, she was an enigmatic French star — and bard Vladimir Vysotsky’s muse.

French actress Marina Vlady died on September 24 at 88. Born outside Paris to a Russian émigré family, she often played women with a “mysterious Russian soul” in European films — perhaps because of her background. Soviet audiences first knew her as the enigmatic witch in André Michel’s melodrama “The Blonde Witch,” and only later as Vladimir Vysotsky’s muse and wife. She appeared in numerous Italian films, including films with Marcello Mastroianni, and won the Best Actress award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival for “A Modern Story: The Queen Bee.” Film critic Anton Dolin looks back on an actre