She was an actress extremely loved by Romanians. He played more than 40 roles at the “Vasile Alecsandri” National Theater in Iasi. However, he had a terrible fate. The great Eliza Petrăchescu died alone, meeting her end on that fateful day of March 4, 1977.
The tragic death of the actress Eliza Petrăchescu / photo: video capture
How a great Romanian actress died
The earthquake of 77 represents a day of mourning for the entire country. At 9:22 p.m., one of the strongest earthquakes Romanians would ever feel occurred. Of the more than 1,500 victims, several big names of the time disappeared on that fateful day of March 4. Among them was a great actress, loved by the Romanian public.
Born on June 15, 1911, in Vaslui, Eliza Petrăchescu attended the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Iasi, being the favorite student of the actress Agatha Bârsescu. From 1929 to 1941, he played in over 40 roles on the stage of the “Vasile Alecsandri” National Theater in Iasi. In the year 1041, it was recommended by the director Ion Sava to the great Liviu Rebreanu, so it ended up at the “Ion Luca Caragiale” National Theater in Bucharest.
He debuted five years later in the film “Lovers’ Forest”, directed by Cornel Dumitrescu. They followed, in turn, “Family jewels” (1957), “Thirst” (1961), “Codin” (1963), “Childhood memories” (1965), “Then I sentenced everyone to death” ( 1972), “Stone Wedding” (1972), “Felix and Otilia” (1972), “The Spirit of Gold” (1974), “Ștefan cel Mare – Vaslui 1475” (1975), “Illustrated with field flowers” (1975 ). In 1976, she was cast in his last film, “Tănase Scatiu”.
“I’m waiting to come to terms with the idea that I’m not immortal”
Eliza Petrăchescu feared only one thing all her life, death. In her last interview, at the beginning of 1977, for Cinema Magazine, the great actress said: “Now I’m just waiting to come to terms with the idea that I’m not immortal. All the time I was afraid of death”.
Unfortunately, a few days later, he would meet his end on that fateful day of March 4, 1977. The Belvedere block, the one where he lived on the seventh floor of 13, completely collapsed. The disappearance of Eliza Petrăchescu meant, for our theater, like all great disappearances, an irreparable loss.
Among the victims were several other big names of the time, such as Toma Caragiu, Alexandru Bocăneț, Doina Badea, AE Baconsky, Alexandru Ivansiuc, Filofteia Lăcătușu, Mihai Gafița, Veronica Porumbacu or Mihail Petroveanu. The earthquake of 77 occurred at 21:22:22, had a magnitude of 7.4 degrees on the Richter scale and a duration of about 56 seconds. Approximately 1,570 people died, of which 1,391 in Bucharest alone.
