- Turned down the part of Doc Jindrich Beránek in Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966), eventually played by Jirí Sovák.
- He turned down the part of Lord Carleton in Psícci lorda Carletona (1970), eventually played by Milos Kopecký.
- In 1968 he excelled in the role of narrator in Vladimír Neff's pentalogy Marriage of Reason, or under the direction of Jindrich Polák in 1976 in the film Night of the Pianist.
- Václav Voska studied law after his matriculation exam in 1937, but he did not complete his studies.
- He also collaborated with record labels as a narrator and dubbed movies.
- In 1946 he went to the National Theater in Prague, but after five years he had to leave it for personnel reasons and transferred to the newly formed Municipal Theaters of Prague. He remained there until his death in 1982 as one of the stars of the ensemble.
- He had a melodious, lyrical, slightly muffled voice that he purposefully cultivated.
- His feeling for the rhythm and cadence of speech, as well as his sense of poetry, predestined him to work with the radio, interpreting poetic and prose texts (mainly in Prague's Viola).
- Already during his secondary school he worked at the Czechoslovak radio (from 1932 ) and from 1939 he was involved in the Vinohrady Theater , where he remained until 1945 .
- In the 1970s, during normalization, for political reasons (he actively participated in the revival process in the 1960s, was elected a member of the Czech National Council and also appeared at the funeral of Jan Palach), he had considerably limited access, especially to television and film.
- In his youth, he was classified by his visage into the narrow actor type of "dandies" or "flautists". However, by working hard on himself (work on a role never ended with a premiere, he was constantly looking for more adequate means of expression), he became a prominent representative of civilian acting in the Czech theater of the second half of the twentieth century.
- His father was a high school professor of mathematics, natural history and physics.
- After graduating from the grammar school in 1937, Václav matriculated at the Faculty of Law of Charles University and continued the family tradition. However, Vosko's extracurricular activities are so time-consuming that he fails the first rigorous exam. Before the correction deadline, the 2nd World War breaks out and universities in the territory of the Protectorate are closed. After the war, he returned to law school to finish his studies after one semester.
- Vasík, as he was called all his life, had a brother Jirí who was three years older, who unfortunately died during his university studies.
- He was on stage for the first time as a tertian, in the role of Page in Stroupeznického's "Mrs. Mintmistrová", and not in the title role of Handsome Budulin, as is erroneously stated. He never actually played the part.
- He began working with the film shortly after his arrival on the professional stage, playing the role of the student Jetelik in Haslerov Please, Mr. Professor! from 1940.
- During his lifetime, Voska participated in forty-two films, of which, however, more than a quarter used only his melodious voice in the form of commentaries or dubbing of other actors.
- After the universities were closed, Václav Voska thought about how to do it so that he did not have to start a total commitment to the Empire. Thanks to his occasional stint at the Municipal Theaters of Prague and his acquaintance with the son of the theater's director, he got a job there as a student. This consisted of being cast in minor or ensemble roles and, if necessary, standing in for an indisposed colleague. At that point, the size or importance of his role in the production was irrelevant.
- As a teacher, Voska approached his students openly and friendly (but not on a personal level). His advice was specific, purely practical, and he was definitely not one of those educators who play tricks on their students. He let them create freely and was only a supervisor himself. His students included, for example, Hanus Bor, Nada Konvalinková and Boris Rösner. Although Rösner was not one of the four students that Voska directly supervised, he recognized Voska's talent (most likely he was also sympathetic to his theatrical enthusiasm), and thus devoted himself to him beyond the scope of his school duties. He required active audience participation in all his contemporary performances. This approach suited Rösner very well, and he spoke of him at every opportunity as his "teacher" and a person who - along with his mother Jarmila Horská - influenced him professional.
- Voska was not one of the mass popular actors, known from the film and above all from the constantly repeated normalization series, but if we talk about his wider popularity, he gained it by presenting the TV series "We invite you to the theater". He was introduced to the audience for the first time as a guide to this cycle on January 19, 1965, when Czechoslovak Television broadcast a live performance of "The Thief from the City of London" from the ABC Theater directed by Alfréd Radok. The concept of television broadcasts was uniform throughout. At the beginning of the program, the guide introduced the audience to the author and the production in question, and during the pause in the performance, he conducted an interview (most often) with the director of the production or the main actors. It was always an informal but informative program. The informality was certainly aided by the personality of Václav Voska, who was not just an "informant", but his knowledge of the theater environment and personal ties to individual actors and directors, on the contrary, helped to break down barriers and the whole interview seemed casual. The cycle gradually gained more and more popularity among viewers and remained on the television screen for five years.
- For the film, Václav Voska was not lucky to have a "regular" director like Václav Hudecek, Ladislav Vymetal or Oty Ornest, who played a vital role in the development of his theater work.
- He was accepted as an assistant professor for the field of acting education at DAMU in 1969. The fixed-term contract was one year and was extended every new academic year until the end of the summer semester 1972/1973. After that, there was no extension...
- Václav Voska is among the actors who have also found employment abroad. Thanks to his knowledge of the language, he filmed in (mainly West) Germany. He first collaborated with German producers in 1965 on the film "Das Haus in der Karpfengasse". However, the biggest stir was caused by the two-part film "Der Reichstagbrandprozess" from 1967, where he played the main role of Jirí Dimitrov. The director Tom Toelle demanded that the representative of this character be a type of Slavic intellectual, who speaks German well, but at the same time it was clear that German is not his mother tongue. Hessian Radio (producer of the film) had a correspondent in Czechoslovakia at the time, who knew Vosk's work in the theater and offered him the role. He, after a short hesitation, accepted the role.
- After the war, he transferred to the National Theater as a promising reinforcement. His position in terms of acting opportunities did not change significantly compared to MDP, so (partly due to political pressure) he gladly accepted the offer of director Ota Ornest and went to the newly reorganized MDP, where he got the necessary background and where he subsequently played his best roles.
- He got his most prominent film roles in the 1960s.
- As an actor, he did not find significant use even in the 1940s and 1950s, when a style of acting corresponding to socialist realism began to dominate.
- The most critical film of Vosk's work, the satire Bilá pani by director Zdenko Podskalsky, also comes from the mid-sixties. The film, based on Karel Michal's short story "How Pupenec came to happiness", takes a very critical look at the political situation and interpersonal relationships at the time. In it, Voska played the character of the psychiatrist Boukal, who continuously ironically glosses the events around him. One of Dr. Boukal's apt remarks is: "Most people are not healthy, especially mentally.".
- Thanks to his diligence and skill, the director Jirí Plachy soon noticed him and entrusted him with the main role for the first time. Unfortunately, it was the title role of the cobbler Antonín Hitt by the prominent Austrian Nazi writer and playwright H.H. Ortner (Ortner's plays served in the dramaturgical plan of the theater as a kind of libation for the protectorate authorities; two of his plays were staged in the MDP during the Protectorate, and Voska had the opportunity to play in both of them) .
- After graduating from grammar school, he also worked with his brother at the CIN Dramatic Studio of Déda Papez, which was founded in the fall of 1938.
- The character of the announcer Petrícek (How to get rid of Helenka, Czechoslovakia 1967) could be a kind of private confession of his work in radio and his own ironic view of his "voice-appeal", which he was aware of.
- As a teacher, Voska approached his students openly and friendly (but not on a personal level). His advice was specific, purely practical, and he was definitely not one of those educators who play tricks on their students. He let them create freely and was only a supervisor himself. His students included, for example, Hanus Bor, Nada Konvalinková and Boris Rösner. Although Rösner was not one of the four students that Voska directly supervised, he recognized Voska's talent (most likely he was also sympathetic to his theatrical enthusiasm), and thus devoted himself to him beyond the scope of his school duties. He required active audience participation in all his contemporary performances. This approach suited Rösner very well, and he spoke of him at every opportunity as his "teacher" and a person who - along with his mother Jarmila Horská - influenced him professionally.
- Voska wa sranked among the masters of the word, but it wasn't always like that. During his engagement at ND, director Karel Dostal recommended him to visit a voice expert. It is quite logical, as a "self-taught" Voska did not receive the necessary education in this area during his acting lessons at school and was educated directly by practice. In a short time, however, he improved so much that, thanks to his vocal expression, he became a frequent radio collaborator. He loved this job the most, also because he liked the intimacy of the message on the radio.
- At the beginning of his acting career, as a basis and inspiration for his work, he cut out pictures from magazines with the likeness of people, with characteristic gestures, details of clothing... During his artistic development, however, he came to the realization that acting art, if it is to be true, must first of all from the actor's heart.
- Václav Voska never studied at any acting school, but he had the opportunity to meet excellent actors from whom he learned. His most distinctive acting tool was his voice. He modulated his veiled baritone and effectively used the pause between words and meanings.
- For the 40th anniversary of the Czechoslovak Radio, a postage stamp was issued on which a scene from the recording of the radio production Cid (Václav Voska and Viola Zinková) is captured (engraved).
- A newly created street in Prague's Satalice district was named after him.
- Because Voska was known as a practicing Catholic and a person who "did not bend his back" after the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he was completely prevented from working in the media for several years. After a certain period of time, he was allowed at least occasional cooperation.
- Even before the ban of working for him took place, he appeared on Czechoslovak Television in a series of challenges to cultural figures, which was supposed to distract young people from suicidal actions unleashed by Torch No. 1 - Jan Palach. Voska appealed to young people not to give up hope and not to fight for their ideals in such a drastic way. He said: "[...] the curtain has fallen before me many times, but it has always gone up again. Believe this fact!" Immediately after the broadcast ended, the Vosks' phone rang and the obscene attacks on his person began.
- In 2003 (that is, on the occasion of his 85th birthday), an assemblage by Kurt Gebauer was unveiled in the foyer of the Rokoko Theater.
- In a newspaper interview, he reacted to Palach's act: " A member of the younger generation gave us, the elders and the old, such a moral lesson that can be evaluated not while standing, but on our knees.".
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content