Modotti, Tina (Teena Modotti)

Tina Modotti called a female devil with an angelic appearance. It could become the heroine detective, romance and a thriller at the same time. Now, fifty years after her death, about her stories, making movies, publish memoirs. The most amazing thing that by reading the memories of her, can not escape the feeling that the memoirists write about the different women. This woman is a chameleon has an amazing gift to be so, what its like to see in love with her man.
No one knows exactly when she was born. Her friend called different numbers. Tina herself somehow evaded the issue. Perhaps it did not suit the day or the number of. Place of birth proved more successful for the revolutionary biography - like the Christ of Nazareth - miserable downtrodden town of Udine in northern Italy, where dwelleth the proletariat. Her parents were ordinary people - mechanic Giuseppe Modotti, from whom she inherited a reckless temper, and laundress Assunta, giving her shyness and early fatigue, imprinted on the face of a child.
At baptism parents gave her the name of Assunta Adelaide Luigi Modotti. When she grew up, then "cut off" is the name to the short and sonorous Tina.

For fourteen years she drove men mad, and in fifteen pleased with the police on charges of prostitution. When she was sixteen, his father left his family and went in search of a better life in San Francisco. With her angelic looks and a damaged reputation to stay in a patriarchal town was unbearable, and January 18, 1920, Tina left his home and went after his father.


In America, my father helped her get a job at a garment factory. Less than a couple of months, she found a job povygodnee (hat in the studio) and ... on the brink of another world - fragrant delicious perfume world pampered groomed women, for whom the day begins at four pm. Girls from the studios met with elegant young men read fashion Theodore Dreiser, and said, stretching nearly the end of words - a hair's breadth as their wealthy client's.

One of her friends introduced her to Robo de L'Abri Richie - French artist, who were thirsting for world fame.

For his first elect Tina forever remain a beautiful angel, beauty of sleep, which had never held in the hands of nothing heavier than colors. It is unlikely that Tina was aware that it is seen not for what it really.

Robo offered her hand and heart, Tina said agreement. However, it soon became clear that she will be not only a wife but the mother of her lover. It was her first family drama.

Tina and Robo have decided to become Hollywood stars. In second-class compartment, they went to Los Angeles. There Robo introduced Tina with someone of their few fans, who had weight in the Hollywood world. It led to the sample. She liked one ambitious director, mlevshemu at the sight of girls with thickly painted dark ages. At that time, were in fashion dekadentki-kokainistki with dark circles around the eyes, with a languid, melancholy eyes. Tina is the best match "ideal". She was invited to a third-rate movie, then on the other. All she starred in three films: "In the Tiger's Skin," "Death Race" and "I can understand", which is now known only through the participation in them of Tina Modotti.

It seemed that this girl has finally found itself, could calm down. However, the opposite happened. Her life has complicated that Robo is clearly inferior to her, and talent, and success. It was clear that long this marriage will not last.

In one of the studios Tina met photographer Edward Weston. He had been long separated from his wife, was a lonely and rather cynical, felt the love kind of drunkenness - and suddenly on the verge of adulthood and old age have found one that changed his view of female perfection.

Tina hid from Weston, that she was married. Robo And, of course, did not know that Tina has appeared each. At one of the social events in Hollywood, Edward accidentally became acquainted with Robo. The men got to talking and somehow went unnoticed at the fashion then the theme of "nude". Robo told that his wife can not stand when asked to pose nude, and Weston - that his girlfriend not only loves this kind of posturing, but she also beat him to risky experiments. Weston concluded that he was familiar to his ears in love with a kind of weak, helpless divinity. And Robo understood that the photographer is going through a wonderful love affair with an older woman of extravagant. Both were very surprised to learn that they love the same woman.

In general, this story would end with yet another commonplace in divorce, if one day the husband-artist has offered his wife a trip to Mexico. The same thought occurred to her friend and photographer.

Only at Weston station learned that his mistress - the wife of his dear friend. But Robo de L'Abri Ritchie has not had a chance to be disappointed in his gentle angel. In a Mexican village he contracted smallpox and died black. However, it sank into oblivion and silent yearning starlet Tina Modotti, and in Mexico remained emancipated friend arrogant photographer Weston.

Tina did not feel the strength to become a star. She persuaded Weston to stay with her in Mexico. This wild country with red-brown mountains and legends of the flying god-man - poluptitse, poluzmee named Quetzalcoatl - shocked Tina. She believed an Indian legend that a woman in this country, too, can become a god. Tina was changing, and Edward could not help feeling.


According to his memoirists, Weston came to his son from his first marriage Chandler; in the morning all three of them climbed onto a flat roof and throwing clothes, laughing and shrieking ran around the roof until it fell into the arms of each other. Perhaps the father and son shared the excellent Tin. However, there were no witnesses ...

As the snake slough, Tina lost her old friends and make new. Among her admirers emerged artists - Diego Rivera, fat, thin as a matchstick, David Alfaro Siqueiros, she made friends with the poet Josц? Clemente Orozco.

She began walking without stockings. Appears in the high society of the peasant shoes, along with men, without shame, smoking on the streets, visited his brother belonged to the famous Orozco only in those years, male night-club "El-Lyrics", which showed female striptease.

Then scandal. Images naked Tina decorate the walls of the Agricultural Academy in the town of Chapingo. The excited crowd of students cut down to the Academy to see the naked Goddess. Murals created Rivera. Immediately rumors spread about their novel.

Tina felt like a queen. About her whispers. Some reverently, others - with contempt. People are more simply called her "non-coms dessert". Ordinary women, seeing her with a camera on the street, hurrying to move to the other side, just to avoid getting into her lens. But friends told her about the legend. Of the hundreds of rumors to the light there was another woman - not the one that knew the parents of Tina, not that he knew music and sounds, and not even that which he knew Weston. It was the third reincarnation of Tina.

When Weston noticed it was already too late. He learned that he has a rival. He had no choice but to go back home to San Francisco. New elect Tina was a painter and engraver, Javier Guerrero - a rebel, like the ancient Aztec god. He saw in it no sissy, what appeared before Robo, or a simpleton, for which Tina took the parents nor the artist, what it saw Weston. He saw a bigoted, like himself, a man ready to go for a new triune God, whose name was Karl Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Like a hammer, Javier forge Tina again.

From Weston Tina just cute gink, with Guerrero - experienced revolutionary ecstasy. He forbade her to engage in photography, persuaded her to work as a secretary in the Communist newspaper "El Machete". Tina was willing to make sacrifices.


In her speech to be pompous and crackling pace like "better tomorrow" and "bright future". Where once lived in Chapingo thieves, prostitutes and gunners, now held Communist rallies and demonstrations. Red flags were hanging everywhere, even in the windows of police stations.

Perhaps, over time, Javier would have realized that Tina is not the one for whom he accepts it. He just did not have time. He was sent to partuchebu in Moscow. In parting, he took with Tina's word that it will be true to the ideas of Lenin and Stalin, and he personally

. So, . Robo de L'Abri Richie fed my body the old earthworms young Mexican republic, . Weston filmed naked Hollywood stars, . Guerrero learned properly hate capitalists, . Rivera wrote naked women, . when the pier of the port city of Veracruz went chernokudry man with Pioneer tie around the neck,
.

His name is Julio Antonio Mella. Swarthy Apollo was deported to Mexico from Cuba for the assassination attempt on the dictator of Gdaе?sk.

I forgot Tina Guerrero.


Mella also without memory in love with her. He never stopped rumors about orgies on the roof with a blond American photographer, or a story about her affair with Javier printer or image of a bare wall Tina Academy of Chapingo. Their passionate love affair lasted two years.

Find out what Tina is much greater than the sum of quotations from Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, he also did not have time. One day in January 1929, in the evening, when he was with Tina was walking through the streets of Mexico City, they were attacked by bandits. Several bullets pierced his chest. He died of extensive internal bleeding.

Tina was crushed by grief. However, the police accused of complicity in the murder is her - found indirect evidence. Chief among them was familiar with some Vittorio Vidalli. In the USSR it was known as Carlos Contreras, in Germany and France - as Aenne Sormenti. About him There were various rumors. They said he was free to attend the Council of Deputies, he welcomed guest in one of the worst places of the USSR - at the Lubyanka.

The police believed that he killed Melyu. Tom had his own reasons. It was rumored that the ugly and brutal Vittorio was hopelessly in love with Tina, but legible Beauty preferred Antonio Melyu.

After the death of Antonio Tina was in complete isolation. Some turned away from her, with the other she tore herself. With Rivera - because he agreed to carry out government orders, with Orozco - because it contained private nightclub.

In October 1930, Tina succumbed to the entreaties Vidalli and arrived in Moscow. Moscow in those years - a ghost town, city, mystery, the street which could not even take pictures. Nevertheless, thanks to the intercession Tine Vidalli managed to smuggle a camera.

Her dream was to see that Moscow, which is well known from photographs, wanted to walk on familiar streets, but did not find them. Ghost communist paradise brought unexpected meeting: on the street she ran with her ex-husband, Javier Guerrero. In the confusion, Tina suggested he start all over again, but the harsh Indian Chiefs will not forgive betrayal. Tina fell into a depression.

A Vidalli waited patiently. He introduced her to Elena Stasova, heads of agencies with a strange name ILD (International assistance fighters of the revolution). Kollontai's friend, associate Lenin had conceived to Tignes some motherly love. On the recommendation of Vittorio Tina hired by DENR. Vidalli recommended it to perform secret work, because Tina was able to change the appearance, could be anyone - from film star to a dressmaker. And now - forgotten by Hollywood career, forgotten running around on the roof under the Mexican sun, the forgotten strip club ... In his autobiography, written when joining the DENR, Tina claimed that all his life knew only need. It was a valuable frame of reference for the subversive ideological activity abroad: fluent English, Italian, Spanish, bad spoke French and German. Here's the finest hour came Vittorio. He told her that the party demands that they married. Tina was forced to accept.

She was given a Soviet passport. Her father Giuseppe was converted to Joseph, now it Tina Iosifovna. In the column "name" is recorded in one of the fictitious names Vidalli - Contreras.


She walked the streets of Moscow. Admired the construction of new buildings, saw the famous house of Konstantin Melnikov. She wrote with mistakes in Russian. She lived the life of our grandparents. But not the same as the majority.

Her salary was ten times more. Private employee received 20-40 rubles, Tina same - 400-500. At the mission she lived only in first class hotels, received a monthly new clothes; DENR provided its employees literally everything, even bras and garters for stockings.

New Tina looked like a red nun: straight black jacket and the same skirt, white blouse, modest and low-heeled shoes, her hair tied tightly in a bun.

Vittorio introduced her to prominent ogepeushnymi ranks. She passed the test of the fifth department of the OGPU, and it felt decent storage secrets of national importance. It is sent to Europe with delicate missions - to transfer the money that one or other of the Communist Party, she worked as an interpreter, messenger, messengers, money bag and his wife-mistress. She becomes one of the prominent members MOPR - a consultant on Latin America. Collects and analyzes reports on the development of the ideas of communism in his beloved Mexico, wrote the resolution on which to judge a situation and make decisions at the top. From its withdrawal depends much.

Each day, her heels without delay chattering in the corridors of the building MOPR. Minutes late - and last arrived, hung out in the hallway on the infamous board. Tina - one of the few who never late.


Vittorio - a permanent mission. He has a lot of other women. Tina one.

When civil war broke out in Spain, Tina, along with Vittorio sent there. Spanish comrades knew the name of Tina Marie. Maria - connected and "purse", it carries money from Moscow to the Spanish Communist Party.

Stalin hoped that the subversive work of agents MOPR yield results. However, when the war in Spain ended in victory for Franco, his attitude to the DENR has changed dramatically. Stalin reported, . that agents of the Comintern and MOPR through a re-recruited, . some of the money uncontrollably settles on the western accounts of the so-called communist organizations - "Cashier" take away the money and pass them to their uncles, . aunts, . brothers,
. For Tina, as for her colleagues, came under suspicion. DENR was disbanded, most of its former employees waited shooting. Began "cleansing".

Tina and Vittorio were then abroad (in Germany). Somehow Elena Stasova managed to convey Tine message that she did not return to Moscow. But to remain in Europe, too, was dangerous, and in 1939 she went to Mexico.

She returned to where she was happy. Returned one - without Contreras-Vidalli. Severed all ties with him.

There's another version: Vittorio and Tina decided to "preserve", so many years later "awaken" and reactivate agents. By the way, Vittorio many years later became the mayor of Trieste - one of the major cities in Italy. Perhaps he was the mayor of agent.

But about Tina all over again shrouded in mystery.

It seems she would be hiding from the agents of the GPU, from the FBI, from the Mexican secret service, from the Spanish. At the same time in 1940, the Mexican Government officially allows it to settle in the territory of the State.


What it does know. In that vein, it is unclear. It was not until January 1942.

And then she died.

Returned one night from the guests. A taxi. A taxi brought her to the house of the dead. What was that? An accident or a planned murder? Of course, immediately began talking about that she was murdered by agents. What intelligence? FBI, the KGB? Unknown.

The last of her lovers, husbands died Vittorio Vidalli, ex-mayor of Trieste. He lived until the mid 80-ies.

In recent years, Tina Modotti became interested in show industry. One of her photographs were sold at auction Christie for 50 thousand dollars, Madonna kindled a desire to re-establish her life on the silver screen, write about it a couple of bestsellers, which took up to three hundred pages of fine print. But to explain than admired this woman, none of the authors could not. Her actions betrayed something that has oppressed her whole life, but never understood it myself.