Jiří Lábus

* 1950

  • "This is how it went. I'll tell you a story. When Olda (Kaiser) and I signed all the various petitions, we had our popular show Maybe Even A Magician Will Come running. We had made a lot of episodes, and after signing the petitions, we were banned from everything. We weren't allowed to do anything, except perform in theatre plays. We weren't allowed to film anything. I didn't care, I wouldn't have acted in any of those scaredy-cats' films anyway. Well, so it happened that episodes of the programme Maybe Even A Magician Will Come had already been completed for about five months, but because of us they were kept in a safe and were not allowed to be broadcasted. Prime Minister [Ladislav] Adamec... You know, I later played him in the series The Czech Century (České století). But back then I had no idea that one day I would play the part of the prime minister. I read somewhere that Adamec had stated somewhere that the artists who signed the A Few Sentences petition were not being persecuted, which is nonsense. It wasn't true. So I called the Prime Minister's Office, a comrade picked up the phone and I said to her: 'Hello.' 'What can I do for you?' 'I would like to speak to Comrade Adamec.' 'He is terribly busy at the moment.' I said: 'I'm not surprised.' 'Would you like to meet up with his adviser?' I said, 'That would be wonderful if Adamec can deal with it.' All right, we set up a meeting. She said: 'The advisor will most definitely recognize you.' It was a beautiful day. We were supposed to meet at the Savarin restaurant, in that garden in the courtyard, at 1 p.m. I came, sat down and waited for someone to come. Suddenly, an old man, who looked like he came straight out of a fairytale, approached me, he looked like the actor Bohuš Záhorský. ‘Hello, Jiří.' I answered: 'Hello.' 'So what shall we have? I have an idea, what would you say to a strawberry ice cream cup?' I said: 'I have nothing against that.' 'Two strawberry cups, please. So, what's on your mind?' I said: ‘I have A Few Sentences on my mind.’ ‘Well, talk to me then, Jiří.’ And I said: ‘You know, I was taken aback by your superior Adamec’s statement for the media that stated that me and other artists who signed the petition A Few Sentences are not being persecuted. And I am finding out from my own experience that this is not true.' ‘Jiří, can I give you some advice? Don't get involved in politics, it's rubbish.' That's what he said. I was very surprised. 'And what was your problem, what did they stop you from doing?’ I said: ‘Our show Maybe Even A Magician Will Come was banned. It's been in the safe at the Czechoslovak Television for half a year now.' 'Oh, I love that show. And who banned it?' I said: 'Comrade Batrla.' He was in charge of televised entertainment. ‘Libor! He's a great guy.' I said: 'I don't see him as a great guy.' 'I'll talk to him about it.' Well, of course he didn't settle anything, the show didn't air until December 1989. It was a completely unnecessary meeting, but an interesting meeting for me personally."

  • Olda (Kaiser) and I were known for doing various practical jokes. And one day, it was in the second half of April of 1989, the phone suddenly rang at my house. 'This is the State Security.' He said his name, some lieutenant. I said: 'Hello.' 'Mr. Lábus, please realize that the fact that I'm talking to you is not some sort of joke.' They knew I was doing various practical jokes with Kaiser. 'Can we talk to you sometime soon?' I said: 'Yes, when?' And he said: ‘What suits you best? Maybe on Friday?' It was Wednesday, I remember that very well. I said: 'I can make it on Friday morning.' 'Okay, then at ten o'clock in the morning come to Bartolomejska street, do you know where that is?' I said: 'Yes, I know where it is.' 'Someone will be waiting for you there and will take you to the office.' 'Okay, okay.' Well, I had a cinema ticket for the movie The Prague Five that afternoon at Lucerna at four o'clock. I had agreed to go. I was sitting at home, about an hour had passed since the phone call, and suddenly the doorbell rang. I was still living in my parents flats. I went to open the door, there were two guys. ‘Hello, Mr Lábus. State Security. We need to talk to you now.' I said: 'But I have a ticket to the cinema at four o'clock.' 'And you can't return it? We have a car here, so we'll take you there, straight to Lucerna.' My father, who had gone shopping, just appeared in the door. He said: 'Where are you going?' I couldn't say I was going for an interrogation, he would have flipped out, I couldn’t do that, could I? So I said: 'They're producers from Gottwaldov, we’re going to arrange some filming.' They stared open mouthed. So I left with them and went to Lucerna. There I returned the ticket and we drove to the State Security Headquarters. We arrived and went to the office. The first one came with me and in the office there was this intellectual, a handsome man with a beard - he really looked like an intellectual. He said to me, and I remember this: 'Mr. Lábus, what are you doing to us?' 'That's what I wanted to ask you.' 'You know, you’ve signed all those petitions.' I said - and I looked him in the eyes: 'Listen, I've known Mr. Havel for a long time. And he is such a decent person. I'm sure that if you had had the petition in front of you, you would have signed it too.' And then he said a sentence that I will never forget: 'You know, I also used to work in the culture industry.' That was it for me, this. And then he started showing me photos of me going to Wenceslas Square every day of Palach's week. I said: 'Ah, well, this is before the sprinkling, here it is after the sprinkling.' And then he asked: 'And you don't mind not acting in films?' 'I wouldn't want to act in that shit anyway,' I said. He looked surprised. And then he said to me: 'Well, listen, you signed that A Few Sentences petition in the theater. Who brought it there?' I said: 'It was already there when I got there, everyone signed it, right?' And then I found out why they called me there. May 1st was approaching. And he asked me: 'Mr. Lábus, will you and Mr. Kaiser go to the parade?' 'No, I'll watch the parade on TV.' They sighed with relief. They were afraid. We were at the height of popularity, because of that show Maybe Even A Magician Will Come. They were afraid that we would do something during the parade. That's why they invited me there. When I said I was going to watch it on TV, they calmed down and sent me home."

  • "I was still a part of Ypsilon Theatre in Liberec. I received a call from the Barrandov Film Studios that the Major Zeman series was being filmed. I had already seen some of the episodes and to begin with they were these kind of detective stories. ‘And this episode, Mr. Lábus, is about that hijacking of a plane.’ I remembered the incident. 'Kind of like a hijack thriller.' Oh well. I was in Liberec and then arrived in Prague. I had the script at home, in Prague, but I was still rehearsing in Liberec, as I had some plays to prepare for before their premiers. I arrived in Prague just before the start of the first shooting day of The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman series the night after a theatre play. And it was really late by the time I arrived, and I, moron, didn’t even read the script. I just quickly learned the interrogation scene for the next day. I came to Barrandov and one of my colleagues said: 'Do you know what we're shooting?' I signed the contract for Major Zeman, about the hijacking of a plane. She said, 'It's not just about the the hijacking.' And I said: 'So what's it about?' 'They are combining it with criticising that Plastic People group.' And I said: 'What?!' I had already signed the contract. Only then did I start reading the whole script. 'Jesus Christ!' But what could I do? I had already signed the contract. This is how it happened.'

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 17.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:27:14
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I felt free in the theatre even during times of oppression

In a production of The Wax Figurine, photo by Studio Ypsilon
In a production of The Wax Figurine, photo by Studio Ypsilon
zdroj: archiv pamětníka, Studio Ypsilon

Actor Jiří Lábus was born on January 26, 1950 into a Prague-based family, his father was the renowned architect Ladislav Lábus and his younger brother Ladislav also became an architect. Ever since a young age, Jiří enjoyed entertaining, making people laugh and shocking those around him. He went to theaters and cinemas, listened attentively to radio plays. After not being accepted to study at a secondary art school, he enrolled in a grammar school and cultivated his passion for theater. After graduating in 1968, he joined DAMU (the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague), where in the autumn of his first year he experienced student strikes and attended the funeral of Jan Palach. After graduating in 1972, he was accepted to work at Studio Ypsilon in Liberec, which was then led by actor and director Jan Schmidt. Even during the normalization era, the small theater managed to bring to life its creative visions relatively freely. Their creative freedom was limited only rarely through censorship. In the theater, Jiří Lábus met Václav Havel and other dissidents, and would later occasionally meet up with them. In 1977, almost the entire ensemble signed the Anticharter out of fear that the theater would otherwise be closed down. A year later, Studio Ypsilon moved to Prague, to a building in Spálená street. Jiří Lábus acted in dozens of films and television productions. In the late 1970s, he also appeared in an episode called “Mimicry” from the series The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman, defaming the band The Plastic People of the Universe. At the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, Jiří Lábus met Oldřich Kaiser and they soon formed a well-known creative and comedic duo that appeared on the television show Kabaret U dobré pohody (The Cabaret At Good Ease). Later they founded their own TV show Možná přijde i kouzelník (Maybe Even A Magician Will Come). In 1989, Jiří Lábus participated in the Palach Week demonstrations, signed the petition organised by cultural workers for the release of Václav Havel and the manifesto A Few Sentences. At the time, the show Maybe Even A Magician Will Come was banned from TV broadcast, it was only brought back in December of 1989. After the fall of the communist regime, Jiří Lábus continued to perform at Studio Ypsilon, and took on many other film and television roles.