Martin Růžek was one of the most respected Czech actors. He played in more than two hundred films and series, he also did dubbing. He suffered a stroke during the filming of his last film In the Crest of the Lioness, that’s why his fellow actor Lubor Tokoš dubbed the post-synchronizations for him, writes the website.
“So, see you tomorrow! With these words, he said goodbye to me, and less than four hours later, his wife Milena called to say that he had been taken to the hospital with a stroke.” a family friend recalled in a television documentary Dalibor Jedlička.
As his condition began to improve, he suffered a heart attack. Doctors managed to save the famous actor’s life, but he struggled with the consequences until his death. “Martin did not tolerate the hospital environment very well. Although the nurses took excellent care of him, he did not move well. When we visited him, he mostly hung on to me and we tried to walk in the corridor. But after a while he got tired and had to lie down in bed,” said Jedlička.
He was then taken to a hospital for long-term patients. “He kept saying that he wanted to go home. And then that lasted maybe a whole year. Added to that were other problems, operations, and Martin didn’t survive that,” he revealed. One of the most popular Czech actors died on December 18, 1995 in Prague at the age of 77.
Martin Růžek, real name Erhard Martin, was born on September 23, 1918, in Červený Kostelec in the Krkonoše region, into the family of a merchant and cloth manufacturer. When his mother became a widow in 1929, they moved to Hradec Králové, where he played in an amateur club.
In 1934 he went to Prague and tried to enter the conservatory. However, he was not accepted due to lack of talent, so in 1938 he graduated from a real gymnasium and began studying forestry engineering. However, in 1939, the Nazis closed the universities. He alternated several casual jobs and began to devote himself to acting in theaters. First it was the volunteer group Čin, later the theater D Tvár or the still famous Rokoko.
After World War II in 1945, the young actor took the stage name Martin Růžek after his uncle. “He took the name Růžek in memory of his mother’s brother, staff captain of the general staff Otmar Růžek, who was shot on October 1, 1941 during the first martial law declared by Heydrich on September 28, 1941, for his participation in the resistance,” Krajské listy write about the actor. Later, this pseudonym became the actor’s full civil name.
Růžek played in theaters in Mladá Boleslav, České Budějovice, in the National Theater in Brno, in the Theater in Vinohrady, and from August 17, 1963 to December 31, 1990, he worked in the drama of the National Theater in Prague. In the years 1969-1970, he was even the head of the drama. Although initially used in comic roles, he gradually developed into a great character actor with rich and convincing means of expression and an eye for detail. During 27 years, he created 49 characters from the classical and modern repertoire at the National Theatre.
His first film was Fajka mieru (1949, Vladimír Sís). A year later, he got more space in the film Temno directed by Karel Steklé, where he played the role of a religious fanatic. The same director also cast him in the second part of the fate of the soldier Švejk, entitled I obediently report. In the same year, he appeared in the film Tam na final couple Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, a year later in the crime film Death in the Saddle directed by Jindřich Polák and in the children’s film Games and Dreams. His role as King Kazisvet in the fairy tale The Princess with the Golden Star is still known today.
In the following years, Martin Růžek played, for example, in the war film Death Says Engelchen, which the pair of directors Kadár-Klos created based on the novel by Ladislav Mňaček. He appeared in a musical If a thousand clarinets, in a well-known historical film Markéta Lazarová or in an absurd experimental comedy Happy end. In 1968, Evald Schorm cast him in his bitter film Parson’s end and the classic Otakar Vávra gave him space in a historical film a year later Witch hammer.
Viewers remember Růžek as Baron von Kaunitz from the crazy comedy Adéla has not dined yet, in 1979 he played Mr. Vok from Rožmberk in the historical film Mr. Vok is Leaving. Růžek also worked intensively with television. He played in the series FL Vek directed by František Filip, he was the narrator of the famous Krkonoše fairy tales, and he created the main character of a lawyer and occasional detective in the series Doctor from Vejminku. He also played in the series Cirkus Humberto and I swear and promise.
Růžek won the Czechoslovak Radio Award, the JK Tyl Medal and the Senior Prix Award, and also the titles of Meritorious and National Artist. However, the actor returned this title after November 17, 1989 in protest against the intervention of the police. which brutally suppressed the demonstration on Národní třída in Prague.
