Marina Alekseyevna Ladynina (Russian: Мари́на Алексе́евна Лады́нина, June 24 , 1908 in Skotinino, Smolensk, Russian Empire – March 10, 2003 in Moscow, Russian Federation) was a popular Soviet film and theatre actress, best remembered for her leading roles in Tractor Drivers (1939), The Swine Girl and the Shepherd (1941), Six O'Clock after the War is Over (1944), Ballad of Siberia (1947) and Cossacks of the Kuban (1949), all directed by her husband Ivan Pyryev. In 1950 Ladynina was honoured with the People's Artist of the USSR title. She was a five-times Stalin Prize laureate.
Marina Ladynina was born in Skotinino village, Smolensk, the eldest of four children, and spent her early years in Nazarovo, near Achinsk in Eniseisk governorate, Siberia. Her parents, Aleksey Dmitriyevich Ladynin (1879-1955) and Maria Naumovna (1889-1971) were uneducated peasants; the family lived in a small wooden hut and young Marina had to do most of the hard work in the house. She spent summers as a hired worker at a local farm, milking cows.