Russian character actress. Her mother was Maria Zotovna Fonina, an actress at the Moscow A.S. Pushkin Theater. The family always lived at the theater, so Natalya could not imagine life outside the acting profession. While taking exams at the Institute of History and Archives, she simultaneously decided to apply to VGIK, to Vladimir Belokurov's workshop. She began studying in her first year, but was hit by a car and seriously damaged her eyesight, and doctors forbade her to continue her studies.

From 1961 to 1967 she worked as a laboratory assistant at the Institute of Metallurgy of the USSR, and from 1967 to 1970 in the Department of Geology at Moscow State University. From 1974 she was an actress at the Ivanovo Regional Philharmonic, and from 1975 to 1977 an actress at Mosconcert.