"Ziegel, ay-liu-liu". Kyiv-born actress Viktoriia Ostrovska, who played a prostitute in the movie The Diamond Hand, has died.

On February 13, actress Viktoria Ostrovska passed away. Viewers may remember her from her role as a bright redheaded prostitute in Leonid Gaidai's Soviet film The Diamond Hand. And her character's enigmatic phrase "Ziegel-ziegel, ay-liu-liu" has become, without exaggeration, a catchphrase.

Ostrovskaya's heart stopped beating at the age of 85. This was reported by a number of Russian media outlets.

Victoria Ostrovska was a native of Kyiv. In the capital of Ukraine, she graduated from the Karpenko-Kary State Institute of Theater Arts. However, her dreams of a successful acting career were not destined to become a reality.

After graduating, Ostrovska worked for a while as a dispatcher at a trucking depot. Later, she accidentally ended up on a movie set for The Diamond Hand. For the actress, it was the case when even such a small role could become a real decoration of the movie. The colorful red-haired girl of easy virtue was quoted by all the viewers of the Soviet comedy.

After that, the Kyivan starred in another film comedy, An Old Acquaintance, where she played a girl in the shower. That was the end of Ostrovska's filmography. No one perceived her as a serious actress, but everyone offered her minor roles like a prostitute.

She could not find her place on the stage either, although she did work for some time at the Dnipro Academic Theater named after M. Gorky (1964).

Ostrovska's fate was not easy. She worked as a cleaner, a librarian, and even an aerobics trainer. Unfulfilled in her profession, she plunged into a deep depression.

"And suddenly - a breakdown. A terrible depression. It had accumulated! Material suffering, changing professions, failure in the movies, a small child, a sick mother... All this made me want to commit suicide. Tears were pouring down like a bucket. I lost 13 kilograms in three weeks," Ostrovska once said.