Biography

July 10, 1922 · Berlin, Germany

May 4, 1986 · Prague, Czechoslovakia (suicide by a medication overdose)

He specialized himself in two genres - realistic crime films and farcial comedies.

Eyewitnesses say that, aware of the problematic times in the 70's, he deliberately included some extremely problematic scene in the scripts of his comedies in advance, which he knew in advance that the watchful eye of the censor (most often in the person of the central dramaturge of the Barrandov Film Studio Ludvík Toman) would ban . He was therefore almost guaranteed that no one would interfere with the rest of the script.

He made his last film in 1982, after which he developed physical and mental health problems. Realizing the hopelessness of his situation, he committed suicide in 1986 by overdosing on medication. The funeral ceremony was not held, the ashes from his urn were scattered in the cemetery in Prague-Malvazinky.

Before the war he worked as an actor, but after the war he started working as a director as an assistant director in the Barrandov film studio.

He experienced the peak of his popularity at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, mainly thanks to his comedies, which were among the bright spots of the then gray program of the Czech Television.

He was the son of the Czech music composer and pianist Erwin Schulhoff , with whom he spent part of his life in the Wülzburg concentration camp.

[on Chérie, sommes-nous faits l'un pour l'autre ? (1975)]: "With this film I am not attacking the development of technology, but rather human convenience. Let us not become slaves to technology. Let us keep the possibility of search and discovery in our lives - for example, of the human heart. Love is a value worth spending enough time on, worth fighting for."