Lyudmila Vlasova

On 19 August 1979, after the last performance of their Romeo and Juliet tour in the Metropolitan Opera, Vlasova and Godunov returned to their New York hotel. The day after, however, the New York Post published a picture of Alexander Godunov with a headline: "After Baryshnikov, Nureyev, and Makarova, another star of Soviet ballet remained in the West". A few days later, Godunov contacted the US authorities with a request for political asylum. After news of his request reached the Soviet authorities, Lyudmila Vlasova was asked to board a flight to Moscow alone. However, the aircraft was detained by U.S. authorities just before take-off as the State Department verified that the Vlasova was returning to the Soviet Union voluntarily. This created an international incident, requiring the involvement of Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter, leaders of the USSR and the U.S., respectively. After three days of negotiation, Vlasova was allowed to fly back home. The incident was dramatized in a 1985 movie, Flight 222.

Lyudmila Vlasova was the leading ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre, where in 1971, acting in the movies Naughty Limericks and Keystone, she met with Alexander Godunov. Soon they began to meet regularly and Lyudmila left her wealthy husband for him. They were one of the most beautiful couples in the Bolshoi Theatre of the 1970s.

Lyudmila Iosifovna Vlasova (Russian: Людмила Иосифовна Власова; born 2 March 1942) is a Russian ballet dancer. She was a soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre (1961–1982), an actress, and at the present time is a choreographer of dance on ice.

Vlasova was born in 1942 in Moscow, Soviet Union to Iosif Markov, a musician. Her mother worked in Red Army Theatre, but after marriage to Markov left the scene for the family life. After the war, her mother broke up with her father, and raised her by herself. Her mother realized the daughter's potential of becoming a ballerina, and turned her to choreography school.