Today, hundreds of people said goodbye to the late actor Karel Heřmánek in the Theater Without Rails. The first of the visitors to the premises of the Prague scene arrived at its opening at 10:00 a.m., others came throughout the day, including a number of fellow actors, for example Jaroslav Satoranský and Zuzana Stivínová. At the entrance to the theater in Adria Palace, they left flowers and wrote messages in the condolence book.
“Karl, thanks for the beautiful moments on stage and in the movies, you have brought a lot of happiness to people,” wrote, for example, Olga Černohorská. Heřmánek, who played many prominent film and theater roles, died tragically on August 24 at the age of 76. The family said goodbye to him privately in the Motol crematorium on September 2.
As part of the event called Day with Karl, the corridors of the theater, of which Heřmánek was the principal for 30 years, were decorated with posters and photographs of his roles. Among the many flowers were wreaths from President Petr Pavel and his wife Eva, Czech Television and the State Cinematography Fund. People of all generations stopped in front of them and remembered. Many of those present sat in the auditorium for a while, where they could watch examples of Heřmánek’s famous theater and film roles on the projection screen. The stage with many artifacts was adapted to the style of Milan Kundera’s legendary play Jakub and his master with Jiří Bartoška and Heřmánek in the lead roles.
Actor colleagues also came to the theater to say goodbye
Some of Heřmánk’s acting colleagues also came to the Day with Karl. Among them were Jaroslav Satoranský, Zuzana Stivínová, Roman Zach, Josef Carda, Petr Kostka or Zdeněk Dušek. Dana Morávková was also present, who is connected with the Theater Without Rails by participating in the productions Where was it at night, Terrace, Sure, Mr. Prime Minister or Much Ado for Nothing. “We were tied to Karl (Heřmánek) and the theater for twenty-five years, we were colleagues, and he also directed me. It is of course very sad for me, I will only remember all the good and beautiful things that Karl and I experienced,” said the actress Moravková.
Heřmánek was born on October 17, 1947 in Žižkov, Prague. He studied construction engineering and thought about architecture. Then he was interested in film directing, but since it was difficult to get into FAMU, he tried acting. Finally, he was accepted at JAMU in Brno. He graduated from JAMU in Brno, in his class he was with Jiří Bartoška, Pavel Zedníček or Jana Švandová. After school, he joined Brno’s avant-garde Theater On a String, then worked at the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem. He returned to Prague in 1976 and played in the Na zábradlí Theater until 1990. When this scene disintegrated, Heřmánek founded Divadlo Bez zábradlí, one of the first private theaters in the Czech Republic.
He is also known for dubbing, his voice is used by Doyle (Martin Shaw) from the British series The Professionals. He also met his second wife Hana in the dubbing studio. They have three sons together, Heřmánek has two daughters from his first marriage. In the case of the tragic death of Heřmánek at the shooting range near Příbram, a forensic autopsy was ordered. Chamomile voluntarily ended his life when he turned the gun on himself.
