From an uncovered movie star and sexual icon of Spain in the seventies to falling into hell: alone, without financial resources and sick. Nadiuska has been retired from the spotlight for twenty years and nothing suggests that she will return to the public scene beyond the portrait that journalist and director Valeria Vegas makes of her figure in the documentary series El enigma Nadiuska, which premieres this Sunday on the Atresplayer platform.
“More than an actress, Nadiuska was a social phenomenon. Her rise and fall was similar to that of many others, but more extensive because in her case there were no drugs or alcohol,” says Vegas, director and screenwriter of the docuseries and author of books such as Great Actresses of Spanish Cinema or ¡Digo! Neither whore nor saint. The memoirs of La Veneno, on which the award-winning series created by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi was based.
Born to a Russian father and a Polish mother, Roswicha Bertasha Smid Honczar, Nadiuska, was born in 1952 in Chierling (Germany) and arrived in Barcelona in 1971, where she began working as a model. Her exotic beauty quickly made her a sex symbol of the time and the cinema made her famous: she filmed 30 films in less than ten years.
He became one of the highest-grossing stars of Spanish cinema and worked with the greats of the time such as José Sacristán, Alfredo Landa and José Luís López Vázquez. She was the highest paid actress (more than a million pesetas per film) and the most desired and photographed woman: she was on the cover of Interviú and Playboy magazines on several occasions. She was also associated with powerful men of the time, aristocrats, politicians and even the King Emeritus, she is included in the docuseries.
But getting to the top of success and fame had not been easy. Among the obstacles she encountered were the jealousy of Spanish actresses who criticized that a foreigner had more work than them. To obtain Spanish nationality, her representative arranged a marriage of convenience for her with a scrap metal dealer that years later was annulled.
Nadiuska was a pioneer of cinema revealing the transition along with some actresses who also appear in the docuseries such as Josele Román, Yvonne Sentis, Silvia Aguilar, Jenny Llada, Sara Mora or Carmen Platero. “Thanks to them, decades later she could naturally see herself in the movies with the nudes of actresses like Maribel Verdú or Penélope Cruz,” says Vegas.
The protagonist of films such as Manolo la nuit (1976), Zorrita Martínez (1975) or The Lord is Served (1976) had her moment of international glory when she played the mother of a child Conan (who was brought to life by Jorge Sanz) in Conan The Barbarian (1982), the film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. But far from her international career taking off, Nadiuska's future began to deteriorate.
The enigma Nadiuska tells how her decline began when she broke off her relationship with her representative Damián Rabal, who was also “her secret lover as the small guild of the film industry knew,” Vegas reveals. It was the beginning of the end. Damián, brother of actor Francisco Rabal, "was an almighty power in the film industry in Spain at that time and just as he made you go up, he made you go down."
"And having the phone not ring to work is terrifying for an actor," continues the director of the docuseries. After the worst face in the film world turned its back on her, Nadiuska also made a bad decision: "Invest her savings in "A video production company with two partners who scammed her. It was the final blow."
Nadiuska maintained her energy and magnetism but increasingly felt more fragile and insecure. In the mid-nineties, she was living with serious financial problems without hardly anyone around her knowing. In 1999 she was evicted from the apartment where she lived in Madrid and later she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Three years later she was discharged, but without being able to recover financially, she began to wander around Madrid and friends of hers saw her sleeping on the street. In statements to television, Ella Nadiuska admits that she took food from the garbage to feed on. After moving and living for a few months in Alcolea del Pinar (Guadalajara), where neighbors remember her always talking about her with fear of being persecuted and overheard, she ended up admitted to the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
During the filming of The Nadiuska Enigma, Vegas found that “seven out of ten people thought that the actress had already died.” The reality is that she has been admitted to the religious psychiatric center Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for 20 years, in Ciempozuelos (Madrid). She suffers from schizophrenia and can only be visited by her family, although her friends doubt that she has it.
Her testimony does not appear in the docuseries because “interviewing her today would be doing her harm after she decided to completely distance herself from the spotlight,” says Vegas, for whom Nadiuska deserves to “live in peace without having to give explanations.” With this documentary “I wanted to thank him for the path he opened for us and for inspiring so many of us.”
