Biography for
Ivan Jandl More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

24 January 1937, Prague, Czechoslovakia

Date of Death

21 November 1987, Prague, Czechoslovakia (complications from diabetes)

Mini Biography

Ivan Jandl was born in 1937 to the family of an accountant Klement Jandl and his wife Bozena. When he was three, he suffered from polio and it seemed that he would not be able to walk again, but Dr. Pribramsky managed to do what would have seemed a miracle: he was soon practically perfectly well.

While at school, he was playing in the school theatre and later joined the famed Disman's radio choir. From the choir, it was just a step to various roles in radio plays. His first film appearance was a very small role in Mac Fric's Varúj!, but he remained with the radio and it was there where Fred Zinnemann chose him in an audition for The Search.

Anyway, after the film's success, he got lots of fanmail from all over the world, and in 1949 he received a telegram, an approximate translation of which reads:

"You won the Academy Award for the outstanding child actor. Congratulations. F. Zinnemann", followed the next day by an explanation (since Oscars were not generally known there at the time) from the production company (Praesens Film): "An Oscar is the highest award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Congratulations." He couldn't attend the ceremony, so the Oscar was brought by some members of the Academy to Prague. There he received many offers (films and contracts), but it was decided by the government that he was to be "preserved to be used by the Czech film industry." But, ironically enough, he went onto make only 3 films (2 in 1949, 1 in 1950).

After graduating from high school, he wanted to study at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), but he was told that he should not have accepted an award from the American film industry and was thus turned down.

He than changed many professions only to return to the radio in 1965 as a program manager, becoming an announcer in 1969. In 1972, he was forced to leave the radio and excluding a short career as a stage manager in a theatre in Teplice, that is all there was for him in the showbusiness.

In 1985 he met Jarmila Novotna, the famed opera singer who portrayed his mother in The Search, for the first time in years.

In 1987 Ivan died at the age of 50 of diabetic complications in his apartement in Prague.

IMDb Mini Biography By: michal.zahalka@gmail.com

Browse biographies section by name

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z