Iveta Bartošová: Petr Sepéši regretted sex

You’ve written a book before The dark face of Princess Iveta Bartošová and I know you didn’t part on good terms. How do you remember her today?

“Iveta was a miracle, no doubt about it. Natural phenomenon. That she would sing a false note? That was out of the question. She was an uncut precious stone and it was necessary to work with her professionally and personally to make it into show business. But that’s where the problems started. I brought a girl from Frenštát, pure, innocent, but she was completely out of line. In the beginning, I had a lot of fun with her, I thought how easy it would be with her, and I never dreamed that it would be terribly complicated.”

And what was so complicated about it? Was she stubborn?

“She didn’t know what it was to get advice. She thought he would come and sing and win. But she wasn’t pretentious, she didn’t even know what it was. And she was convinced that everything I do for her, i.e. the work of a manager, is a matter of course. She wasn’t even surprised when she became a Golden Nightingale.”

In your book, you write that Iveta and Petr approached you about the collaboration themselves.

“They knocked on my office in Lucerne. They wanted to work. They wanted to sing – she from Frenštát, he from Aš – and they didn’t know anyone in Prague. Iveta literally came with a sleeping bag. I was more shocked than them, I had seen them on TV before and to me they were American stars. But I was reluctant to employ them in the Lucerna Bar, it was something different from vaudeville or competitions. Here, people were dancing, having fun, our performers had to pull them down, get them into the game, and I thought this was too young for that. But I tried with them.’

Did you help Iveta with her image?

“My wife was involved in modeling, so of course we advised her. She even lived with us. My wife worked at Tuzex in Štěpánská Street, where we chose dresses and costumes for Iveta. It wasn’t borrowing, we were actually buying them for her.”

What was the chemistry between Peter and Iveta like then?

Petr and I became very good friends and told each other everything. Petr never wanted to live with Iveta, he was not in love with her. But he respected her terribly as a singer and wanted to do duets with her. For Iveta, Petr was the first contact with a man. But he fell in love with a completely different woman – Maruška, who is the mother of his son, young Peter. We are still friends today. Peter and I kept thinking about how to tell Iveta. But then the accident happened to Peter, his son was born as a corpse. I hate that word.’

Did Iveta ever meet Maruška?

After Peter’s death, Iveta lived with us, in an apartment with my wife and son. And once, when we were all at home like this, the doorbell rang and a pregnant Maruska was standing in front of the door. She needed to talk to me. She knew what Petr had told me, and she needed my testimony that the son was his. And Iveta told her that she had nothing to do there. Maruska apologized, turned and left. And I turned to Iveta on that account, like in a bad American movie, and told her to pull herself together and get out. That was my de facto farewell to her.’

You were married then. Did they read it to you at home?

“We divorced, but not because of Iveta, because of my lifestyle. But to this day, I regret that I paid much more attention to Iveta then than to my son.”

You say that Petr did not love Iveta. On the other hand, he became her “first”, which only confirmed her infatuation. Why did he let it go so far?

“We talked about it. And he regretted that it had happened. However, he also told me that he had never known such a dragon. You felt like a child next to her. He said he had no idea where the passion in her came from.”

They say that after Peter’s death, you all thought that Iveta would take at least a year to get together, but she came back very soon.

“That’s a crazy story too. It started with the fact that Iveta’s whole family came to my house on the day of the funeral, because I lived near the Olšan cemetery. And I look to see if they have a flower or a wreath – no. Iveta apparently thought that I would arrange it. So I ran out and started looking for something for her. After the funeral there was such a session and Iveta asked me what she was going to do now? I told her that I don’t know, that I can’t ride with her now and that we will call in a year. And she called in a fortnight. It rubbed, it didn’t work until the moment I was talking about came.”

Let’s stop at Zlaté slavík 1986, when you were still working together. You mentioned that she wasn’t surprised at all.

“I learned it from the Young World. As a former dancer I was never lucky enough to be famous, I was in complete euphoria for her, as happy as I was. But she took it as – so fine, so what? She took it for granted that she was good, and everyone confirmed her in that – Víťa Hádl, Zdeněk Borovec, Karel Svoboda…“

Have you ever seen Iveta drink alcohol?

“No! When I wasn’t traveling with Iveta, I worked behind the bar and she came to see me there when she had time. She never took a shot! Not that I forbade her, she just didn’t drink at all. Nor Petr Sepeš, he didn’t even have a beer. Before the accident, he was hanging out with his friends in a pub, so then there were rumors that he got drunk there. But that is not true at all. It was also proven during the investigation.”

What was Iveta’s psyche then? Was she taking antidepressants?

“I’ve never seen her take pills in my life. But my wife saw her. I know that Iveta tried to commit suicide twice then, but it was demonstrative. She had some acylpyrines at home and something. She threatened.’

Before her death, did you ever have a chance to meet again and explain things?

“Out of curiosity, I went to the Karlín theater when they had a concert with Michal Penek and they were to sing a duet that I made up. His name was A silent song. Her whole family was also there in the hall. Even the father, who wrote me letters before, how I was Iveta’s second dad and how I helped her a lot in life. So I went to see them, my mother greeted me normally, but my father spat in my face without saying a word. I didn’t know what was going on. Then we never saw each other again. Iveta and I passed each other at events, but she basically didn’t say hello. My fault, I should have taught her. If there was no gratitude, a greeting would have been enough.”

Are you sorry?

“Terrible. And I’m not only sorry that I lost the fight. It hurts me a lot that Iveta and Petr also lost it. He also died on my birthday. We were waiting for him at the party and suddenly the phone, a landline, said that Petr had died. He was wearing a white shirt and had my business cards in his pocket. They couldn’t even recognize him. I then had to go identify him. Terrible.”

If you had the chance to say something to Iveta today, what would it be?

“I’m sorry.”

How did the interview come about?

Tomáš Gottlieb has been in show business for over 50 years, he worked with Marcela Holanová (72) or Jiří Korn (74). As a dancer, he gained a lot of experience abroad – in Italy, Switzerland or Germany.

But he always wanted to be a manager, which could not be official under the previous regime. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for Iveta Bartošová to push him out of her memories after the breakup. But Tomáš can tell an engaging story about that time.