Czech Books An interview with the best loved of all Czech actors
For this week’s programme, we have something of a treat: a long forgotten interview from our archives with someone who is nothing less than a Czech legend. If you ask just about anyone in this country who is the best loved Czech actor of all time, you will almost certainly hear the name Jan Werich. Several generations of Czechs have grown up to love the larger-than-life roles he played, his distinctive and deep voice, and his wonderfully expressive and humorous face, immortalized in films that span a career of fifty years. Born in 1905, Werich first shot to fame in the late 1920s, when he joined forces with his friend and fellow actor, Jiří Voskovec and the composer Jaroslav Ježek. Their satirical left-wing musical cabaret, the Osvobozené divadlo, or Liberated Theatre, was immensely popular in the decade leading up to the Second World War, and its songs are much loved to this day.
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