Natalya Tenyakova is a People's Artist of Russia (1994), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1982), winner of the  Golden Mask award (1995), and a member of the Theatre Union of the Russian Federation (1965).
Natalya Tenyakova was born into the family of the Soviet workers in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). After finishing school, the girl entered the Leningrad Theater Institute and later joined the troupe of the Lenkom Theatre. In 1968 Natalya was invited to work in the Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theater.
She has made a very successful duet in life and art with the actor and stage director Sergey Yursky, her husband who has understood the uniqueness of her talent better than anybody else and helped to manifest and unfold it.
Natalya Tenyakova was awarded the Golden Mask prize for her work in the performance The Chairs (1994) staged by Sergey Yursky in the theater School of Modern Play. 
She has played a great number of vivid theatrical roles. She is also popular in Russian cinema, where her extraordinary theatricality endows her characters with bright colours and stark contrasts. Natalya Tenyakova made her film debut with a minor role in the feature film The Elder Sister back in 1966. The role of Grandma Shura in the brilliant Soviet melodrama Love and Pigeons became one of her brightest and most memorable works.
Presently the actress lives in Moscow and works in the Moscow Art Theatre.