Born in the town of Olevsk, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, in the family of a border guard. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1.03.1973). There lived in Ashgabat a small, quiet, plain girl nicknamed 'Shorty'. She passionately loved the theatre. She dreamed of becoming an actress. She wanted to join the school drama club, but shyness held her back. Yet the quiet girl turned out to be persistent. And one day she ran away from home. In one dress. Without money. A friend gave her bread for the journey. She arrived at the Minsk Theatre Institute. But classes had already begun there. However, Lyusyena did not return home. She took a job as an apprentice salesgirl in a perfume shop. She hauled boxes. She arranged goods. But she did not lose heart, because she knew: she would become an actress anyway! She graduated from the A.V. Lunacharsky State Institute of Theatre Arts (1955, class of People's Artist of the RSFSR Grigory Konsky). Ovchinnikova first appeared on screen in the film 'The Father's House' in the small role of Nyurka. The director of 'The Father's House', Lev Kulidzhanov, was often asked: 'And where did you find this village girl who plays Nyurka? She is amazingly natural.' Few knew then that this role was played by an actress who had first visited a village only during the location shooting of 'The Father's House'. And any heroine of Lyusyena Ovchinnikova - on stage or on screen - is just as genuine, just as truthful. What is the actress's secret? It seems to lie in her rare ability to persistently search for and find in the most unremarkable person, at first glance, something interesting, bright, most characteristic, essential.

These searches began when she was still studying at GITIS and had played many comedic roles. No one doubted: Ovchinnikova's element was comedy. But she suddenly amazed everyone by choosing for her graduation performance the role of Arbuzov's Tanya with her tragedy of unfulfilled happiness and strength of soul unbroken by life's storms. This role opened the doors of the Mayakovsky Theatre to the young actress. In 1955-1976 she was an actress at the Moscow Academic Theatre named after V. Mayakovsky. In 1976-1983 she was an actress at the Literary-Dramatic Theatre of the All-Russian Theatrical Society. For one season (1985-1986) she performed on the stage of the A.S. Pushkin Ashgabat Russian Drama Theatre. In the 1980s-1990s she was an actress at the Moscow Film Actor Theatre, working on contracts. In her last years she worked on the programme 'Comrade Cinema', acted in films, in 'Yeralash' and 'Fitil', and voiced animated films. Lyusyena Ovchinnikova passed away on the morning of 8 January 1999 in Moscow. She was buried in the columbarium of the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Her third husband was actor Valentin Kozlov, who died in 1998. The life and work of the actress are the subject of: Chapter 55 of Leonid Filatov's cycle of programmes 'To Be Remembered'; the documentary 'Lyusyena Ovchinnikova. Life in Expectation of Love' ('Ostankino', 2008).