Svetlana Kharitonova was a character actress with a sharp edge, one of the most frequently filmed actresses of the 1950s-1980s. She graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School (1954). She completed the Higher Television Directing Courses at Central Television (1966) and the directing faculty of VGIK (1971). She worked in film from 1955. From 1957 to 1969 she was an actress at the Moscow Academic Satire Theatre; from 1969 she was a television director, and from 1971 an assistant director at the "Ekran" creative association. She did not play leading roles. Kharitonova's domain was supporting roles: the heroines' girlfriends, girls from the construction site, buxom collective-farm women, and so on. The actress loved them. In each of them she saw a person with a particular fate. She pitied them, sympathized with them, but could also laugh at them, sharpening the character to the point of grotesque. Starting with her stunning work in the film "The Cranes Are Flying," Svetlana Kharitonova immediately drew attention. The strict, somewhat "cold" Irina Borozdina became for the whole world the embodiment of the Soviet intellectual girl. And then suddenly came the next role, the old woman Fekla in "White Nights," based on Dostoevsky's novella. And alongside it, the dreamy simpleton Klava in the comedy "The Girl Without an Address," the activist Liza in "The Unyielding," the lovestruck soldier's wife Varvara in the tragedy "In the Difficult Hour," the classic idiot Brandakhlystova in "The Merry Rasplyuyev Days," the eccentric vamp Elvira in the extravaganza "It Can't Be!" Kharitonova proved that she was a remarkable actress, synthetic, one of a kind. No one was ever able to take her place. Svetlana entered the Moscow Art Theatre School without much difficulty. Her classmates were Lev Durov, Oleg Anofriev, Leonid Gubanov, Mikhail Zimin, Nina Gulyaeva and Leonid Kharitonov, future idols of millions of viewers. In their third year Leonid Kharitonov proposed to Svetlana, and she has borne his surname ever since (her maiden name was Sorokina).

But the marriage was short-lived. Two years later, during the filming of "The Street Is Full of Surprises," Kharitonov became infatuated with his co-star, and Svetlana was left alone. Work saved her, her busy schedule at the Satire Theatre. Svetlana Kharitonova's creative fate was unconventional. Though a popular and sought-after theatre actress, she left the stage at the height of her career: she had grown tired of it. She moved into documentary film and graduated from the directing faculty of VGIK. She made films about a silk factory, the Polenovo estate, the life of a department store, and the fate of a kindergarten teacher. Then she became interested in sports films and created educational films about figure skating, marathon running and freestyle wrestling. Her remarkable film "Teaching Infants to Swim" won the Grand Prix at the VIII All-Union Festival of Sports Films. At the same time Kharitonova did not abandon acting: she continued to appear in films without interruption. Once, after a shoot, Svetlana Kharitonova was driving the crew in her car and struck a pedestrian. The woman died. There was a trial, there were petitions and character references. The relatives of the deceased also appealed to the court not to be too severe. The actress received a suspended sentence and was exiled to the Vladimir region, where she worked for three years at a reinforced-concrete plant. She organized amateur performances. Upon her return Kharitonova received invitations from Basov, Mikhalkov and Gaidai and plunged back into the world of cinema. She played teachers, railway workers, chairwomen, the wives of alcoholics and old spinsters. In any role the actress was in her element. One always wanted to watch her, to follow her spontaneous reactions, to rejoice or suffer along with her.