Blesk Podcast: 100 years since the birth of the brilliant Jiří Šlitra. He hid his illegitimate children from everyone

Few artists can boast that their songs and plays are loved by generations of listeners. Jiří Šlitr and Suchý are undoubtedly among these chosen ones. The first named was born on February 15, 1914 in Zálesní Lhota to the family of teacher and painter Josef Šlitrová and Pavla Šlitrová, who taught the gifted boy to play the piano and accordion. A very talented and intelligent boy, he grew into a pragmatic man who studied law at his father’s request. But he was drawn to music and art.

A book was published about the life of Jiří Šlitro this year Jiří Šlitr Doctor Piano from the pen of Lukáš Berné, who is the archivist of the Semafor theater and has collaborated with Jiří Suchý on 25 projects so far. If Šlitra could ask anything, he would be interested in how he managed to be so creative and keep up with everything. “Shlitr was terribly practical, pragmatic, rational and knew what he wanted. He knew where he was going, how he was going to do it, he knew how to handle money, how to take care of his family. I just don’t understand at all how it all managed to fit into that one person,” marveled the writer, who also went through Šlitr’s estate.

Slutty womanizer

Compared to Jiří Suché, who is a poet and playfully able to entertain the company, Šlitr remained secluded and observed everything. “If there was a piano in the room, he immediately grabbed the piano and led the fun,” Berný said in the podcast. But as they say… quiet water washes the shores. It was known about Šlitra that even though he had a long-term partner Sylvia Daníčková, he was happy around various young ladies.With two of them he even shared a big secret that none of his loved ones, not even his parents, knew about.

With screenwriter Bohumíra Peychlova, he had a daughter Dominika, now married as Křestťanova. “We know that he took care of her financially, brought her dolls from every tour, helped at home if he had any time at all. The life of an artist and actor who performs every day is complicated, but even Mrs. Peychlová speaks very positively about him, that as far as possible, he was a great dad,” explained the Semafor expert, how the musician’s fatherhood went.

The third secret

The public learned about the second child only 10 years ago. During one Semafor tour in southern Bohemia, Šlitr met nurse Jana Placha. From this acquaintance came a son Petrwhose father died when he was 5 years old. But he has memories of him, how Jiří Šlitr brought him a parrot in a cage. However, the feathered one was very noisy, so they had to cover it in a cage. “Petr remembers carrying coal to their apartment when needed. So no star to sit there in a chairbut he grabbed some urn and went for coal.”

According to Lukáš Berné, Petr and Dominika knew about each other, but they had not seen each other for many years. “They became friends on the human level only relatively recently. Dominika told me that the news reached her that there is another sister of theirs, but she herself doesn’t know more about her and doesn’t even know where to look for her,” the writer revealed the third big secret of Jiří Šlitra, who on December 26, 1969, at the age of 45, suffocated himself with lighting gas in his studio with his lover Jitka Maxová.

Writer Lukáš Berný revealed in Blesk Podcast what successes Jiří Šlitr achieved, how he tried to break through in the USA and what are the uncertainties regarding his death: