Download JAN WERICH

JAN WERICH
Lucka Keilová
The early life
• He was born on 6th February 1905 in Prague.
• He was important film and stage actor and film
screenwriter.
• He was studying at a grammar school and then at the
Law Faculty of the Charles University. He didn´t finish
this studies. Since 1927 he began to devote to theatre
activities.
• During his studies at school he met his future partner
Voskovec. They started to work together since 1926.
• Ar first, they worked together in the magazine and
soon they began to perform in the Liberated Theatre
(Osvobozené divadlo).
• They worked there as writers and actors. They were
memorable comedic pair.
The Liberated Theatre
• It was the Prague avant-garde scene founded in 1925.
• Stage plays were interspersed with songs, dances and
other scenes. This is called a revue.
• The goal of the games was critisism of society,
politicans and dictators.
• The first play of Voskovec and Werich was the Vest
Pocket Revue. Here is the beginning of Forbin. It was
fore stage.
• The next theatre plays are Smoking revue, Caesar,
Donkey and the shadow, Executioner and Fool, Rag
Ballad, Heavy Barbora and so on.
• The theatre was closed by an official ban in 1938.
The life during World War II
• When the Liberated Theatre was closed, Voskovec
and Werich were forced to leave Czechoslovakia.
They spent their life in the USA during the World War
II. There, they were actors too. Their plays were
performed in English for American public and in Czech
for the local Czech community.
• They were creating anti-Nazi radio programs in Czech
language, which were broadcasted to all Europe.
The life after World War II
• Werich came back to liberated Czechoslovakia in
1945, Voskovec a year later.
• They tried to restore the Liberated Theatre as a
Theatre W+V. Because of the political situation it was
not possible to do political satire. So the theatre
worked only a few months.
• Voskovec left our republic after 1948, first to France
and then to the USA, where he was until his death.
• Werich became a director of the ABC Theatre for
several years.
• Miroslav Horníček became his new partner. Werich
featured many renewed plays from the Liberated
Theatre with him.
Werich´s daughter
• She was a Czech writer and translator.
• She was born in Czechoslovakia but then she left our
republic with her parents to the USA, where she lived
to the age of 10.
• She graduated the Theatrical Academy of Performing
Arts acting (DAMU).
• She was a theatre actress rather than a film actress.
She was in the Czechoslovakia film actor group.
• At the end of the 50´s, she traveled with her father
several times to Italy.
• She narrated some stories with her father like Italian
Holiday.
Werich and film
• Werich was not only a theatre actor but also a film
actor.
• Before the war he starred in for example Peníze nebo
život, The World Belongs to Us nám etc.
• After the war he filmed many films. For example The
Emperor and the Golem, The Secret of Blood, Once
upon a Time There Was a King etc.
• Fimfárum 1, 2, 3 were published after his death. There
is only Werich´s voice from the original author´s
reading of the book Fimfárum.
The end of his life
• Werich was awarded the title of the National Artist.
• Propaganda used his signature under Anti-Charter
between 70´s and 80´s to denigrate him. He signed it
under the pressure.
• Werich was outside the mainstream of the culture in
our Republic at the time of normalization. He was
ignored until his death.
• He died of the cancer of the larynx.
• Werich died on 31st October 1980 in Prague.
• His grave is next to the one of his best friends
Voskovec.
• http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Werich
• http://www.spisovatele.cz/jan-werich
• http://www.velikani.cz/index2.php?kat=litcz&zdro
j=werichj
• http://www.databazeknih.cz/autori/jan-werich171
• http://www.csfd.cz/tvurce/2018-jan-werich/