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Zhanna Prokhorenko was born on May 11, 1940, in Poltava, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union (now Ukraine). Her father, Trofim Prokhorenko, an Air Force officer, died in World War II when she was just one year old. Raised by her single mother, she attended school in Leningrad and studied acting at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers' acting studio. There, she was discovered by the Moscow Art Theatre and relocated to Moscow. At nineteen, director Grigoriy Chukhray cast her in Ballad of a Soldier (1959) alongside Vladimir Ivashov. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, propelling Prokhorenko to international recognition. In 1960, she toured the United States to present the film. During this time, the Moscow Art Theatre enforced a strict policy against stage actors transitioning to film, resulting in her dismissal. She then studied under Sergey Gerasimov at the Soviet State Institute of Cinema (VGIK), graduating in 1964 as a film actress.
Prokhorenko was married twice. Her first husband was director Evgeniy Vasilev; they had a daughter, Yekaterina Vasilyeva, and a granddaughter, Maryana Spivak. Her second husband, writer Artur Makarov, was murdered by burglars in their luxurious Moscow apartment in 1995 while she was away. The perpetrator was never identified. Following this tragedy, Prokhorenko suffered from depression and withdrew to a small village outside Moscow. She passed away from a chronic illness on August 1, 2011, in a Moscow hospital and was buried at Khovanskoe Cemetery in Moscow, Russia.
