At the age of 86, the Czech actor Jan Hraběta, a longtime member of Prague’s Jár Cimrman Theatre, died. The theater confirmed this on Facebook on Thursday. The count was also supposed to play in Thursday’s performance, writes TASR reporter.
The Count got into acting by accident. When his father was arrested in 1948 for working in the Bata company, he and his brother and mother left for Prague. He trained as an electromechanic and earned a living as a driver or engine repairman. In the 1960s, he became a lighting engineer at the Theater Na zábradlí, where he met the later Czechoslovak and Czech president Václav Havel.
As the server iRozhlas.cz reminded, Hraběta was also actively involved in dissident theater and in 1975 he played in the banned premiere of Havel’s play Žebrácká Opera. He joined the Jár Cimrman Theater in 1978 as a lighting engineer. However, he was soon offered an acting role. As the server iDnes.cz pointed out, he started his active acting career at the age of 35 in the play Long, Wide and Short-sighted. Later, he also excelled in roles in the plays Česká nebe and Nemý Bobeš.
He played many small roles in films, for example in the comedy Vrchní, prchni!, Vesničko má středisková, The end of poets in Bohemia or the TV series Horákovi or Vypraváj. According to the server iRozhlas.cz, Hraběta last performed at the Jár Cimrman Theater on Sunday.
He was also supposed to perform in Thursday’s performance Akt. The founder of the theater and actor Zdeněk Svěrák said that they will perform the play anyway. The Václav Havel Library also reacted to the death of the actor, which identified Hraběta as lifelong companion and unassuming friend of Václav Havel.
