Lauferov a planned valve operation that caused his heart to fail in March 2020 turned fatal. They put him into an artificial sleep from which he never woke up. And the immediate cause of death now ended up being cardiac arrest. A little sad ending of Mr. Kohn from the comedy Kamenák. He liked people and had a lot of friends, but Ester didn’t let anyone see her father.
Many of them would be very happy to visit him. “I told Ester that I would go see Pepa, that maybe she would react to my voice. And she that it won’t work because she won’t tell me where she lies. That no one knows about it, so that it doesn’t get shouted out and that no one goes to him anywhere.” Vlasta Kahovcová (80), one of the most famous Gotts, told Bleska chorister, who started at Laufer’s.
It was a release
“And now I will never say goodbye to him. I’m very sorry because he is the reason I ended up with Gott. But I think that death was liberation for Pepík, what he lived was no longer life after all. Especially for him,” Kahovcová also pointed out.
Even producer Oldřich Lichtenberg (61), who with Laufer rehearsed the children’s musical Treasure Island at the Broadway Theater a few days before his planned operation, regrets that he could not see Pepík. “Pepík was not on the devices, but access to him was not allowed. So we couldn’t even visit him.” confirmed the words of Kahovcová Lichtenberg, who has worked with Laufer for the past 20 years and they were very close to each other.
He loved people
“We last saw each other at Jelínky’s for a beer. He told me: I’m going for a planned operation, but I’ll be back in a few days and we’re moving on.” Lichtenberg recalls. However, Laufer did not wake up from the anesthesia and the premiere of his latest work, the musical Treasure Island, for which he wrote the libretto, had to be done without him. “It’s not good that Ester didn’t let his friends visit him. He loved company, he loved people and fun. He is very sad that he died all alone. I hope the final farewell is public, he deserves it!” emphasizes Kahovcová.
Stress from the wife
…he never learned about her death
Laufer’s health was certainly affected by the stress of the long-term and very serious illness of his wife – costume designer Irena Greifová (†83). She was in a serious condition in the hospital for a long time after the toxic shock, then she had to learn to talk and walk again. “She could have died for me, and I’m so happy that she made it through and is making it through. But I am extremely exhausted from it,” Laufer, who married the only woman in his life in 1969, admitted to Bleska at the time. And when Greifová was all right, he found himself in trouble again. He survived her by less than 1.5 years, Irena died the Christmas before last year, when he was already in artificial sleep and he didn’t even know it.
Kańka from the previous regime
Laufer drew attention to himself during the previous regime with a controversial song Letter to Free Europe, in which in 1976 he celebrated the actions of State Security agent Pavel Minařík, who allegedly planned a bomb attack on the radio station Svobodná Evropa in Munich. The song was not an initiative of the secret service, as was speculated in the 1970s, but directly of the artist. Laufer then claimed that he sang it as a parody. The singer was registered by the StB in the confidant category with the code name Vostrý.
Josef Laufer died: He could have been the Czech Belmond, then a shadow fell on him… Videohub
However, the artist denied this. “I was never in the Communist Party and never an estebák. Christ the Lord! I was a staunch anti-Bolshevik, after all, because of that I was almost kicked out of DAMU when I refused to join the party. I have a clear conscience. I never hurt anyone, on the contrary, I helped. I didn’t deliver,” he fumed in one of the few interviews he’s given on the subject.
Role in Humbert
Thanks to his exotic appearance, Josef Laufer was a sought-after film actor, we saw him, for example, in films Night at Karlštejn, Wow guys, Old men on hops, A day for my love, The Virgin and the Beast or series Stoneman. He also acted in serials An engineering odyssey or Circus Humberto.
Don José Pedro Rodriguez de Montagnes de Laufer
Laufer was born in Brittany, France to a doctor of Jewish descent and a native Spanish mother. His full name was Don José Pedro Rodriguez de Montagnes de Laufer. He spent his childhood in England, where his father was a military doctor with the RAF. In 1947, the family returned to Czechoslovakia. Father Maxim Laufer continued to work as a pediatric orthopedist in his homeland, young Josef trained at Tesla and then worked at a research institute. After the war, he performed at the ABC Theatre, interpreting from Spanish. He studied at DAMU, acted in films and started a professional career as a pop-music singer. He started his own group Golem. He successfully used his language skills in his career, speaking English, Spanish and German.
