In October 2023, I wrote my column about Kim Yaroshevskaya. She had just turned 100 years old.
I recounted a meeting with her at the IGA fishmonger in L’Île-des-Sœurs where Kim and I lived in neighboring buildings. She had just ordered a salmon steak. Out of curiosity, I asked the fishmonger, old enough to have already looked The surprise box, if he knew who this customer was. He hadn’t the slightest idea, although I thought I was helping him by adding that she was a great actress. He stared at her for a moment, then questioned his younger colleague with his eyes. Both were unaware of his identity.
Unforgettable Fanfreluche
When I told them that she had been Fanfreluche, the eldest, suddenly moved and with wet eyes, began to apologize. He remembered Fanfreluche very well. The other, just as moved, suddenly remembered that she had been Grandmother in Pass-Partout. The two exchanged a smile and the oldest handed Kim the salmon steak after making an “X” in grease pencil on the package. “We owe you that!” Did they reimburse IGA for this gift? Maybe, I don’t know. As we left the store, Kim kindly told me that she had been uncomfortable that I identified her in this way to these fishmongers that she saw regularly. “But it’s crazy,” she added, “that we still remember Fanfreluche!”
Kim Yaroshevskaya has played in 18 Quebec films, in 21 series and television shows, including almost all the series that I have written, alone or in collaboration, starting in The surprise box. She was also part of the cast of 14 plays. But none of the characters she played overshadowed the legendary Fanfreluche doll.
They were only’a!
That’s because Fanfreluche was Kim herself. If anyone offended his modesty, his cheeks would turn red like Fanfreluche’s. There wasn’t much difference either between her messy hair and the funny spiky braids the doll often sported. And her eyes were so sparkling that she didn’t need the stars with which she adorned Fanfreluche’s eyes. What a smile! What a bursting laugh! They were those of the doll and those of the real Kim in the flesh. The grace that Fanfreluche had when she walked or danced, Kim had acquired from her first ballet lessons. As for the fluted, singing voice shared by the actress and her doll, it will remain for a long time in the ears of the four generations who heard it.
Kim Yaroshevskaya is a very rare jewel from distant Russia to be embedded in the cultural setting of Quebec.
