Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya was born on December 19, 1944 in Moscow into the family of the great chansonnier Alexander Vertinsky. Having got fine education in arts, Anastasiya made her film debut in 1961. Her first role was that of Assol in the romantic film Scarlet Sails based on Alexander Grin’s story. 
The young actress at once attracted the viewer’s attention. However, Vertinskaya herself was dissatisfied with her debut role. The following film Amphibian Man starring Anastasiya as Guttieres was a resounding success. At the same time Vertinskaya took the stage of Pushkin Theatre.

At the age of 18 the actress was already offered the role of Ophelia, and her playing of Lisa Bolkonskaya in Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace won an Oscar award to the film. In 1968 she appeared in another classic – the film Anna Karenina. Her stage roles included those in the plays The Seagull and Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, A Live Corpse by Leo Tolstoy, and others. In 1980 the actress played Gemma's role in the TV series The Gadfly. Same year Vertinskaya became the Honoured Actress of the RSFSR. Apart from romantic roles Vertinskaya also played some negative characters, such as Queen Morgana in New Adventures of Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. In 1989 Anastasia staged the play Road of Russian Pierrot based on the book by her father Alexander Vertinsky.

Anastasia Vertinskaya taught in the Comedie-Francaise theater in Paris, in Oxford, and in Switzerland. From 1991 she established and headed the Charity Foundation of Russian Actors. Presently she lives in Moscow and writes scenarios and short stories.