It has been several weeks since the sad news of the death of the greatest Czech star, Karel Gott, spread worldwide. Not only his closest friends and family, but also many colleagues will always remember him with love and respect. Author and screenwriter Petr Macek decided to compile the experiences, stories, memories and common history famous personalities shared with Karel Gott in one book. He launched his new book called Takový byl Karel Gott (Such was Karel Gott) in Kotva in Prague, and we were there. Macek told us what the readers can look forward to in his new book, spoke about the creative process and revealed what memories of Karel Czech personalities keep in their hearts.
Petr Macek is the author of several biographies of Czech celebrities, his new book, however, is completely different.
"This book isn't a typical biography. Many of those have already been written, even Karel Gott himself put together his own autobiography in the last year of his life. No one can compete with that, and they probably shouldn't even try. But as a journalist, I meet a number of personalities who accompanied Karel on his journey, each of whom knew him from a slightly different angle, had their own opinion on him, shared a common experience with him... That's why I decided to collect their memories. So the book Such was Karel Gott is conceived as a collection of thirty-five interviews on the topic of Karel Gott,"
the author described the book to LP-life.cz.
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Petr MacekSource: Archiv Petra Macka
Personalities such as Helena Vondráčková, Hana Zagorová, Lucie Bílá, Marta Kubišová, Karel Vágner, František Janeček and Petr Janda speak in the book. They all share their experiences with the Maestro, be they from the road, the stage, recording or private life.
Prodej bytu s balkónem, Smetanovo nábřeží, Praha 1
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"In my opinion these fragments will enable the reader to put together a mosaic of what Karel Gott was like as a man, friend and colleague,"
Macek said.
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Source: Archiv Petra Macka
There will be no shortage of funny stories and experiences
Serious, emotional, tragic and humorous topics all appear in the interviews. Readers will learn how the singer dealt with the death of his loved ones, from which colleagues he kept the birth of his first daughter Dominica a secret or what impact the tragedy, when he narrowly escaped a tsunami while on vacation in the Maldives, had on him. But most of the interviewees remember Gott with a smile on their lips.
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Source: Archiv Petra Macka
"For example, Eva Pilarová, who once played a terrible prank on Gott together with Yvonne Přenosilová, is an amazing storyteller. And Jiří Krampol can pour a great number of stories from his sleeve. My personal favorite is the one where Karel Gott was walking through a forest, quite bored, saw a feeder in the distance and asked the hunter who accompanied him if he could use the phone booth to make a call to Munich. But Krampol himself couldn't guarantee that it really happened, however, the important thing for him was that Karel himself found the story funny and kept spreading it."
said the writer.
The book was written in two sections - the first part of the conversations took place in the spring of 2019, when Gott was still alive, and was intended as a gift for his birthday. The second part followed shortly after his death in the autumn of that year.
“I eventually decided to leave the interviews I had done in the spring in the book as they were, so they speak about Gott in the present tense. I liked that it expressed optimism and hope that he would defeat the disease. Plus, after Gott's death, I noticed that his friends refused to talk about him in past tense. Karel is simply immortal, and his death doesn't change that,"
concluded Petr Macek.
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O vtipné historky s Mistrem v knize rozhodně nouze nebude
If you haven't bought all Christmas presents yet, it is a well-known fact that a book always makes people happy. And who else - after Christmas dinner, during which carols from Karel Gott will probably be playing in the background, or you'll hear his voice on TV in the classic fairy tale Cinderella - to read about than the singer, who is ingrained in our hearts forever.
Book as a gift
Macek published several books this year. Already in the summer, he launched a book in which he interviewed famous personalities about their perspective and memories of the events of 17 November 1989. It is called "1989 Through the Eyes of 30" and among the personalities remembering the Velvet Revolution on its pages are, for example, Eliška Balzerová, Jan Potměšil, Jan Hrušínský, Daniela Kolářová or Milan Šteindler.
Petr Macek is also known as a comic book screenwriter. His latest achievement is the adventure graphic novel for schoolchildren Pérák: The Eye of the Future, which takes place during World War II. It is a result of Macek's collaboration with artist Petr Kopl.
