Irina Petrescu

Biography

Irina Petrescu (1941–2013) was a celebrated Romanian stage and screen actress, also active in radio and television.

She was discovered while still a university student by director Savel Stiopul, whose screen tests eventually reached Liviu Ciulei and led to her film debut in The Danube Waves (Valurile Dunării, 1960). Although she had initially enrolled in the Faculty of Letters, she went on to graduate from the “I.L. Caragiale” Institute of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest in 1963 (class of Ion Șahighian and David Esrig).

Petrescu quickly became one of the most refined and distinctive presences in Romanian cinema of the 1960s, admired for her elegance, intelligence, and emotional precision. She starred in films such as I Don’t Want to Get Married, A Sentimental Story, Steps to the Moon, and The Stranger, and gained further acclaim in Lucian Pintilie’s Sunday at Six (1966), opposite Dan Nuțu. The two reunited in The Mornings of a Sensible Boy (1967). In 1969, she won the Best Actress award at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival for her performance in The Mischievous Adolescent.

Though she appeared in 29 films between 1959 and 2010—including Through the Ashes of the Empire, The Making of the World, The Impossible Love, Hotel de Lux, and Miss Christina—theater remained her greatest passion. She spent her entire career at Bucharest’s Bulandra Theatre, working with major directors such as Liviu Ciulei, Alexandru Tocilescu, Cătălina Buzoianu, Silviu Purcărete, and many others, in productions ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Sartre, Camus, Pirandello, and Beckett.

Reserved in public life and rarely giving interviews, Irina Petrescu was regarded as one of the most distinguished actresses of her generation—an artist whose poise and depth left a lasting mark on Romanian theater and cinema.