Biography

June 12, 1941 · Prague, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia [now Czech Republic]

[on Psícci lorda Carletona (1970)] "I was warned about Jirí Krejcík, who cast me as a lady in 'Lord Carlton's Little Dogs'. When we were arranging it, Krejcík suddenly said: "...and here the lady will be naked". I took it as a joke because it wasn't in the script, but then the assistant director came in and said he was serious. I sat at home all night and wrote a letter to Krejcík saying that I would not be naked in his film. I sent it off and three days later Krejcík called. We met in a cafe about it, where he told me how Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau are naked in every movie. I told him that I was neither Moreau nor Bardot, that I didn't live in beautiful capitalist France, but in socialist Czechoslovakia, and that I wouldn't let the concierges hang me from a lantern afterwards. I didn't care about it any more, I gave up the role, then came August 1968 and in the autumn Le lionceau (1969) started filming. Half a year later I was walking down the sidewalk, and suddenly a Sim car stopped next to me, and Krejcík leaned over and asked if I would play the lady for him. I thought he'd already filmed it! I nodded because I thought it was a joke. But the day after that, I got a call from the production saying the shooting was ready. They'd solved the scene by having a student do it, and they gave her 500 crowns for it. Krejcík said that everyone would think it was me anyway. But I retorted that if the worst should happen, I would always prove that it wasn't me."