George Voskovec

George Voskovec
Jiří Voskovec, born Jiří Wachsmann and known in the United States as George Voskovec (June 19, 1905 – July 1, 1981) was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director who became an American citizen in 1955. Throughout much of his career he was associated with actor and playwright Jan Werich. In the U.S., he is best known for his role as the polite Juror #11 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.
Life and career
Voskovec was born as Jiří Wachsmann in Sázava in Bohemia to Jiřina Valentina Marie (Pinkasová; 1867-1939) and
Václav Vilém Eduard (Voskovec; later Wachsmann; 1864-1945). He had two siblings, Mrs. Olga Adriena Kluckaufová and Dr. Prokop Voskovec. His granduncle was Bedřich Wachsmann and his cousin was Alois Wachsman, both painters and architects. Another uncle was Austrian painter Julius Wachsmann (1866–1936). He immigrated to the US in 1939 and again in 1948 with the onset of the National Socialist and Stalinist regimes, respectively, in Czechoslovakia.
He attended school in Prague and Dijon, France. In 1927, together with Werich, he joined the Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theater), which had been created two years earlier by members of the avant-garde Devětsil group, Jiří Frejka and Jindřich Honzl. After disagreements led Frejka to leave the group in 1927, Honzl asked Voskovec and Werich, both law students who had created a sensation with their Vest Pocket Revue that year, to join the theatre. When Honzl, who had directed their productions, left in 1929, Voskovec and Werich took control of the theatre and changed its name to the Liberated Theatre of Voskovec and Werich, assuming all responsibility for direction, writing, librettos, and other artistic decisions.
The Liberated became a center for Czech clownery, a reaction to contemporary political and societal problems. Their performances began with the primary goal of evoking laughter through fantasy, but with the changing political situation in Germany their work became increasingly anti-fascist, which led to the closure of the Liberated Theater after the Munich Agreement in 1938.
Both Voskovec and Werich fled to the United States in early 1939. For the rest of his life, Voskovec lived primarily in the United States, interrupted only by brief stays in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and in France from 1948 to 1950. Until the mid-1940s, Voskovec worked and wrote mostly with Jan Werich, but after Werich's return to Socialist Czechoslovakia, they met only a few more times. After his return to the United States in 1950, Voskovec was detained at Ellis Island for eleven months for his alleged sympathy for Communism.
Although Voskovec lived in three countries and his maternal grandmother was French, he always maintained that "I am a born and bred Czech." In 1955, he became an American citizen.
Voskovec acted in 72 movies. Only the first five of these were Czech; the rest being American or British. His most famous American movie role was the polite Juror #11 in 12 Angry Men (1957), in which being a European immigrant to the US was central to his role. His other famous films included The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Boston Strangler (1968), as renowned psychic Peter Hurkos. His last movie was Barbarosa (1982), with Willie Nelson and Gary Busey.
In 1975, he published the Czech spoken LP record "Relativně vzato", where he reflects on his life and world in general. A sleeve note for this LP was written by another notable Czech émigré, author Josef Škvorecký. Voskovec also appeared in the 1978 television film The Nativity and the 1980 film Somewhere in Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In 1981, he played Fritz Brenner in the NBC TV series Nero Wolfe with William Conrad as Wolfe.
Voskovec starred on Broadway in 1961 along with Hal Holbrook in Do You Know the Milky Way by German playwright Karl Wittlinger. In 1964, he appeared in an episode of The Fugitive.
Death
Voskovec died in 1981 of a heart attack in Pearblossom, California, at the age of 76. He is survived by two daughters, Victoria and Georgeanne. His interment was at Olšany Cemetery in Prague.
Minor planet 2418 Voskovec-Werich discovered by Luboš Kohoutek is named after him and Jan Werich.
Selected filmography
The May Fairy (1926) - Ríša
Ve spárech upíra (1927)
Paní Katynka z Vaječného trhu (1929) - Iškariot
Pudr a benzín (1932) - Driver
Peníze nebo život (1932) - Pepík
Workers, Let's Go (1934) - Filip Kornet, Shuffer
The World Is Ours (1937) - Newspaper hawker
Anything Can Happen (1952) - Pavli
Affair in Trinidad (1952) - Doctor Franz Huebling
The Iron Mistress (1952) - John James Audubon
12 Angry Men (1957) - Juror #11
The 27th Day (1957) - Prof. Klaus Bechner
Uncle Vanya (1957) - Voinitsky (Uncle Vanya)
The Bravados (1958) - Gus Steinmetz
Wind Across the Everglades (1958) - Aaron Nathanson
BUtterfield 8 (1960) - Dr. Tredman
Hamlet (1964) - Player King
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) - East German Defense Attorney
Mister Buddwing (1966) - Shabby Old Man
The Desperate Ones (1967) - Doctor
The Boston Strangler (1968) - Peter Hurkos
The Iceman Cometh (1973) - Piet Wetjoen
Man on a Swing (1974) - Dr. Nicholas Holnar
The Nativity (1978) - Joachim
Somewhere in Time (1980) - Dr. Gerald Finney
Barbarosa (1982) - Herman Pahmeyer (final film role)
References
External links
Voskovec and Werich on Radio Praha
Between Art and Life: Voskovec and Werich and The Affair of 1934 – by Holly Raynard, University of California, Los Angeles
Czech music in exile: Jaroslav Jezek – History of collaborative work with Jaroslav Jezek
1905 births
1981 deaths
People from Sázava
People from the Kingdom of Bohemia
Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States
20th-century Czech male actors
Czechoslovak male singers
20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights
Czech male dramatists and playwrights
Czech expatriates in France
Czech male stage actors
Czech male film actors
Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic)
Czech people of French descent
Burials at Olšany Cemetery