Legendary actor Vladimír Menšík would have celebrated his 95th birthday this year. But he died at the age of 58 due to health problems. In an interview for the newspaper, you look at him son Jan Menšík (62) recalled. He is extremely similar to his famous father. Although he is not stopped by people on the street, as an assistant director he has ties to colleagues who worked with his father. He collaborated with him on three projects.
“The first film we worked on together was When Divorce, So Divorce, where I was the third assistant, then Stormy Wine and the series Léatící Cestmír. It was double-edged because it was nice to see him at work. On the other hand, I also acted as a nurse or rather a brother to him,” he told the newspaper.
What he had to manage was not easy. “He had seizures when he stopped breathing. He learned to deal with it with quick help – he had medicationwhich he was able to administer intravenously himself. Thanks to them, he was able to get back to a state where he calmed down and did not suffocate within half an hour to three quarters of an hour. At these moments, I was put on because I had a practice from home. I thought it was terribly unfair that they actually saved money for a medic and I felt useless in my job.” admitted Jan.
The little boy started having problems with asthma in the 1970s. “Back then, he dealt with it with sprays. Sometimes he also went to the hospital, where he lay down for two or three days. Then it started to get worse, it was 1975 when the drugs stopped working,” he added, adding that the actor eventually switched to a combination of drugs that were injected into a vein for a faster effect.
Gradually, however, the intervals between seizures became shorter. According to his son, he had them three to four times a day. “Unfortunately, there was also the fact that ephedrine was part of the medication, which is a stimulant drug that sometimes made dad angry. He had some psychological effects from the ephedrine. We had to have him hospitalized twice, because we couldn’t handle him and couldn’t help each other,” describes difficult times. He inherited his father’s sense of humor, which was present even in serious moments.
