Jaroslav Weigel

Jaroslav Weigel (born 2 February 1931 in Rychnov nad Kněžnou) is a Czech actor, writer and painter. From 1970, he is a member of the Jára Cimrman Theatre.

Biography

Weigel studied at the Faculty of Education of the Charles University in Prague. After his graduation, he began working as an editor in various magazines, most notably in Mladý svět (from 1959 to 69). In 1972, he collaborated with the illustrator Kája Saudek on the comics series Lips Tullian. He appeared in minor roles in the films of his colleagues from the theatre, Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák. He is known mainly for his roles in the Jára Cimrman Theatre.

Filmography and theatre

The list is based on the information of the Czech and Slovak Film Database.

Ladislav Smoljak

Ladislav Smoljak (9 December 1931 – 6 June 2010) was a Czech film and theater director, actor and screenwriter. He was born in Prague.

Smoljak tried to study at an art academy but failed the admission process. He went on to study physics and mathematics, and later worked as journalist and scriptwriter. Together with Zdeněk Svěrák he founded the Theater of Jára Cimrman (Divadlo Járy Cimrmana, DJC) in Prague, named after a fictitious genius. Smoljak wrote scripts and directed several films; these became very successful in the Czech Republic.

He died of cancer on 6 June 2010 in Kladno.

External links

Zdeněk Svěrák

Zdeněk Svěrák (born 28 March 1936 in Prague) is a Czech actor, humorist and scriptwriter. He is one of the most popular Czech cultural personalities. In 1989, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1958, he graduated in Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague. He has worked in a wide variety of capacities. His work contains more than 300 musical texts, plays and more than ten movies. Among his film scripts are Kolya (Czech: Kolja, Academy Award winning film) and The Elementary School (Czech: Obecná Škola, nomination for Academy Award), both directed by his son Jan Svěrák. With his close friend Ladislav Smoljak, he created the fictional personality (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher) Jára Cimrman who won the voting for The Greatest Czech in 2005 (only the fact that Cimrman is fictional prevented him from actually winning). Zdeněk Svěrák also founded a charity organization Paraple (in English, "Umbrella") which focuses on helping paralyzed individuals.