MOSCOW, July 6, 2008 (AFP) - Actress Nonna Mordyukova, a star of the Soviet cinema, died in a Moscow hospital late Sunday aged 82 after a long illness, ITAR-TASS news agency reported quoting her sister.

Mordyukova played in over 60 films starting with the 1948 film 'The Young Guard' by Sergei Gerasimov and including 'The Commissar' directed by Alexander Askoldov and 'Diamond Hand' by Leonid Gayday.

Born in 1925 in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Mordyukova studied at the All-Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow.

Named USSR People's Actress in 1974 and winner of the USSR State Prize in 1949, she 'lived for the cinema... and up to her last moment she dreamed of new roles,' said her sister Natalia Mordyukova.