When I learned to memorize the text you second. But he went through it for the film and on stage. Secrets of celebrities
02/25/2022
Photo: Courtesy of Barrandov Film Studio
Description: Josef Chvalina as Joska Nejtr in a bitter comedy about marriage, infidelity and strange love Private Storm, filmed according to the novelties of the same name by Vladimír Páral with the subtitle Laboratory Report from the Life of Insects
PHOTO / VIDEO The master of tragicomic figures took his life with humor and insight, and when he forgot the text, he bounced on a cigar. But with his straightforwardness and principledness, he managed to cook properly.
When colleagues from the Vinohrady Theater in Prague publicly demanded the harshest punishment for Jiřina Štěpničková for trying to leave the republic illegally, there were only four people in the whole group who refused to join. Among them were Ludmila Vostrčilová and her husband Josef Chvalina, who thus earned the displeasure of the powerful. Although they continued to play in the theater, they had a few years in front of the camera. But Josef was said to have trouble remembering the text. “He was a well-known recessionist. He forgot the text, so during the performance he went to the dressing room, where he lit a cigar and leafed through the relevant passage in the script. And Karel Augusta, who played his servant, stood on stage like a jerk with that empty wheelchair, repeating, ‘Where is my owner?’ Chvalina finally sat in the wheelchair, took a breath, and found that he had forgotten it again. So he repeated the whole anabasis. And then he just started, “Pavel Zedníček reminded him of his declared weakness in the magazine Téma.
With Svatopluk Beneš in the comedy Hostinec U kamenného stol; photo courtesy of Czechoslovak State Film
An actor because of the war
He was born on April 30, 1920 in Prague and belonged to a generation whose entire future was changed by the Second World War. In order to avoid total commitment in Nazi Germany, he enrolled to study acting at the Prague State Conservatory. As a student, he stood in front of a film camera for the first time, in 1939 he played one of the students in a cute comedy by director Miroslav Cikán Studying Behind the School. He successfully graduated from the drama department in 1941 and received his first permanent engagement in the drama ensemble of the Provincial Theater in Brno, which at the time, however, was struggling with the repression of the occupation authorities. It was closed in November and the ensemble was definitively dissolved in the spring of the following year. Josef then took refuge in the Horácký Theater in Jihlava, which was founded in 1940 as the first regional stage. At that time, it was based in Třebíč and gradually brought together an extraordinary group of future prominent personalities, from Nina Popelíková and Ota Sklenčka through Jarmila Balašová to Miloš Willig.
With Naďa Urbánková in 1966 in a performance of the Semafor Pokušitel theater; photo courtesy of the State Theater Studio Prague
Love from cabaret
Unlike his colleagues, he managed to return to Prague in 1943 and got engaged in an entertainment company with a dance and variety program Alhambra, where he is also famous with his wife, the future support of the ensemble of the Theater in Vinohrady Ludmila Vostrčilová. His work in his native metropolis was also available to him before returning to the camera. The low-level project was supposed to have an educational background and point out how dangerous a desire for fame can be, unsupported by real talent.
I command the show:
The left plan did not work
In the meantime, he married Ludmila and in 1945 they both became members of the ensemble of the May 5 Theater, which was founded just a few days after the liberation and operated in the building of today’s State Opera. The characters of various inconspicuous men, frightened officials, cowardly petty bourgeois or conformist and helpful members of the intelligentsia, who represented them with simple gestures and sober facial expressions, were most suitable for Josef. But he also had an extraordinary sense of humor, although he did not emphasize the tragicomic features of his heroes with facial expressions, but rather with working with his voice. Despite grandiose plans to offer mainly left-wing folk entertainment, but audience interest fluctuated, the scene soon began to face financial problems, and was eventually abolished in 1948. For one season, Josef got a job at the Realistic Theater, then followed his wife to the State Film Theater (today’s Karlín Music Theater) and only in 1951 did he land for a longer period in the Vinohrady Theater.
With Jiřina Jirásková in Petr Karvaš’s comedy Diplomats; photo courtesy Theater in Vinohrady – Olga Housková
From Kundera to detective
The connection with the State Film Theater earned him a number of film roles, although usually only supporting ones. For example, he played the scribe Percy in the timeless comedy Hostinec U kamenného tabulky, the mayor’s son Slávek in the war drama Mordová rokle, Piskače v Plavecký mariáši or the printer Novotný in Martin Frič’s satirical comedy Leave it to me. In 1964 he left for the Na zákín Theater, where he again worked for only one season. for several years he performed as a guest in the legendary Semaphore and in the meantime he performed at the SK Neumann Theater for a year. In 1969, she returned to the Na Zábradlí Theater, where she remained for another ten years. But the 1960s earned him a long line of supporting film roles. Apart from Josef Záturecký, he played in the comedy Nobody Will Laugh, which was filmed by Hynek Bočan based on a short story from Milan Kundera’s collection of Ridiculous Love, or Joska Nejtra in Private Storm, a filmed story of Vladimír Páral’s book of the same name. The audience knows his face well, especially from popular detective stories, who still regularly return to the television screen, The Treasure of a Byzantine Merchant, The Sign of Cancer and The Killer Awaits on the Tracks.
Master Bruno in a historical drama from the reign of Prince Vladislav Kosmas and Mrs. Božetěcha; photo courtesy of Czech Television – Přiba Mrázová
Master of recitation
In the 1960s, he started a regular collaboration with Czechoslovak Television, appeared in a long series of successful productions and did not miss series, from The Man at the Town Hall, in which he played the head of the Šebesta school, through Kazda in the Thirty Cases of Major Zeman to another school head in the District. in the north. In the meantime, he changed his home theater stage again and returned to the Vinohrady Theater. He taught artistic performance at the Prague DAMU, was a great reciter, so he performed in the poetic café Viola, among other things, and often collaborated with radio and dubbing. Over the years, they have become almost doomed figures of various pedagogues, not to be overlooked, for example, as a mathematics teacher in the poetic musical comedy Kopretina for the Castle Lady or Professor Doucha in Václav Vorlíček’s short story film Green Wave. In 1983, he last appeared on camera as Professor Matyáš in the historical biographical drama Otakar Vávra The Journey of Jan Amos. Josef Chvalina died suddenly of a heart attack on November 19, 1982 in Prague.
(sources: Theme, Czech film, Wikipedia, CSFD, FDB, Horácké divadlo Jihlava)
Entered by: Adina Janovská