He is considered one of the greatest actors of the Czech cinema. Oldrich Novy appreciated gentility, elegance and perfect look. He always insisted that everything is perfect, yet he had so much positive energy.
Oldrich Novy was a Czech actor, singer and director. In his film roles, he created an archetype of elegant man. Perhaps best known is his legendary sentence from the film Kristián: "Close your eyes, I’m leaving ...".
Oldrich Novy fell in love with acting in his childhood. He was encouraged to act mainly by his father Antonín, who as a Prague chief fireman provided a fire patrol in all Prague’s cinemas at that time, and his uncle Milos Novy, who took him to the National Theater. Oldrich studied typography, but when he later appeared in cabaret as a singer in operetta, his uncle arranged lessons of acting with an actor from the National Theater, Karel Zelensky.
In 1919, he began his career in Ostrava where he acted in operetta and in drama. Since 1920 he had acted in the National Theatre Brno. He spent there 16 years. First as an actor, then as a director. In 1928 he introduced as a director a completely new type of performance - musical. In the mid-30s he moved to Prague, where he opened his New Theater and began to appear more often in front of the film camera.
He had many charming women around him all the time. Natasa Gollova, Adina Mandlova and Lida Baarova would be able to seduce any man even today. Nevertheless, it is rumored that he was never unfaithful to his beloved wife, Alice.
After Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 began his hard lifetime, as his wife Alice Novakova was of Jewish origin. Oldřich Nový definitely saved her life, because he refused to divorce her. In 1944 they were both arrested and transported to a concentration camp. After the War he returned to filming, but his appearance after 1948 was very sporadic. He mainly focused on theatre roles, cooperated with radio broadcast and even television projects.
Significant film roles:
Christian/Kristian, Hotel Blue Star/Hotel modra hvezda, Eva fools around/Eva tropi hlouposti, Life is Beautiful/Zivot je krasny, A charming fellow/Roztomily clovek and many others.
Interesting facts:
At first, he wasn’t interested in films and filming. He devoted himself to the theater where he promoted at that time new musical comedy.
He was a great admirer of the French actor and chansonier Maurice Chevalier.
Novy’s wife, Alice Wiener, convinced him to play in the film Kristian, because he didn’t want to play in that film at all. 