Petra Černocká: Ringo Čech kicked me out of the theater!

Petro, you will celebrate two jubilees this year!

“Two? I know that I will have a half-round birthday, I share it with Kateřina Macháčková, for example. We have already promised each other a few times that we will celebrate them together. It hasn’t come up yet, so could we now… And the other one?’

In the summer it will be twenty years since your wedding to Jiří Pracný.

“Oh, you see! But we don’t put up with those ceremonies at all, it seems so middle-class to me. I don’t need any gestures and bouquets, I don’t like it.’

Was that also the reason why it took so long for you to decide on her? You had been together for thirteen years before…

“I guess it was because we were both a bit obsessed. Years later, I can say that we are forgiven. I also had the feeling at first that one marriage, quite a long one, is an experience and that I don’t need to have it a second time. But I’m comfortable, I want to have someone behind me who assures me. And Jirka was handsome, cute, but we probably wouldn’t have thought of it if someone hadn’t kept asking us when we were going to get married.”

Let’s take stock of the birthday. Who do you have artistic genes from?

“I do not know. In any case, my father had two sisters, and Vlasta Brodský was born to one of them. Dad also loved Voskovec and Werich during his student years, he used to go dancing, I also found two pictures he painted at the cottage. My brother and I had an ear for music, and my daughter and granddaughter will also go to music school, so it’s probably inherited.”

You studied opera and piano, but you never devoted yourself to it. You started at Semaphore instead.

“The parents were overjoyed because it was something – to have a daughter in Semaphore!”

At first you were in Šimek and Grossmann’s group, then Jiří Suchý dragged you into his group?

“No, they kicked me out of Šimek. I was part of František Ringo Čech’s band there and was a bit redundant. Miluška Voborníková was prettier, she had nicer legs, Naďa Urbanková was there… I was such a weed. When I was fired, I met Mr. Suchý. He asked where I was going. I said nowhere, that I was fired, and he let me go to him. And that was excellent, because I really got a theater school there. The last show I played there was called Charodějky, and with that I am recording for your next question…”

…because Václav Vorlíček saw you at this performance and cast you as Saxana in The Broomstick Girl.

“He just had to persuade the approval committee a bit, they wondered why I should play it. We talked for a while in the hallway before, and I have a theory that he liked my sense of humor.’

Vorlíček already had successful comedies behind him, did you believe that this one would be successful as well?

“I hate to say it, but I totally underestimated the script. My husband Honza Vaculík and I watched it and thought it was such an idiot. But since my husband was also my manager, he guessed that if the film is successful, it will also help the band.”

You stated somewhere that the film sometimes gives you a complex, that you should have been born, played Saxana and died.

“It was more like a bon mot. Sure, there was a period when I felt that Saxana still prevailed among people. I was a little offended, because at one time I was in fourth place in Slavík, had hits like Nakláďák or S mné zi požiní broukej, and Saxana was still winning with people. But many times it came in handy. One should not turn up one’s nose at something that comes to one’s mind.”

Is it true that you had to beg for that famous opening song?

“Yes, Honza really pushed for it. And it was a great idea, Angelo Michajlov wrote an interesting song that is exceptional in my repertoire. And you know there’s a mistake in the text?”

What kind?

“There is absolute rhyme. As Pavel Kopta wrote it with Fofrem, he used the word “enough” twice in one rhyme – which is an inadmissible error for text writers. He didn’t notice.’

You filmed with a number of acting bards, with Menšík, with Hrzán and others. How did they take you as a »acting singer«?

“I dated that Hrzán! (laughs) I’m not sure if he wasn’t completely married at the time. You used to go to Semafor for me after the show and someone came to tell me: Bacha, Hrzánová is standing at the entrance, so I took it backwards. Jirka had a weakness for pretty girls, he was flighty, so I think none of them dated him for very long. I remember our first date – he took me to the cottage, but before anything could happen I had a gall bladder attack, so he took me to the hospital.’

What about Vladimír Menšík?

“He was absolutely incredible. The energy he gave off! He was already sick on The Girl on the Broom, and one night they even took him to the hospital. Also at the hotel where we stayed during the filming, I heard him coughing at night. But he had a note for everyone. I remember – it will please you, I was sitting on the stairs in a skirt, eating something, Menšík walked downstairs, he looks and says: Little girl, I think a young lady should wear white cotton panties, not black.”

How do you remember your cousin Vlastimil Brodský?

“In the family, we called him Vlasta. Our family always received tickets to the Vinohrady theater from him when there was a premiere. We were different in age, so he would give us chocolates with my brother, but the older I got, the closer we became. We also talked very confidentially, in the sense of how he was with his family, what his feelings are and the like, I don’t want to say the details. But I remember one sentence that I don’t think I’ve said anywhere before and which moved me. He said to me: Petrushka, remember that an old person needs much more love than a young person. I remember it to this day and it’s true, because old people are sometimes forgotten and many times they don’t feel that love.”

And does it have anything to do with what he later decided to do?

“I don’t know how it had to do with his personal feeling. It could have been a quick move. He liked to joke about it. But I know that he bore his old age very strenuously. About a fortnight before, Jirka and I were at his cottage and he was complaining about his stomach. A piece of it was removed in his youth, and before his death it started to make him angry again. He really liked to eat, he liked to go to the local restaurant, but he confided in Jirko that he couldn’t eat and that he didn’t enjoy it very much.”

You once wrote the book What Mothers (Didn’t) Teach Me. What did you mean by that?

“I didn’t have it very easy, so I’m used to taking care of myself in all circumstances. I had two mothers, the first one died when I was ten years old. I don’t remember much, because a ten-year-old has so much to do with the whole world that he perceives his parents only to a certain extent. I’ve never had the chance to ask her where she was born or anything, I’m a sucker for that. But the other mother took very good care of me.”

It is said that your husband never read the book because he might be jealous of the men you remember there…

“That was an exaggeration. My husband is not jealous at all. Maybe so on our dachshund, when he shows more feelings for me than for him. He is not jealous of people, not even of my female friends. They’ll let me go to the candy store with them.” (laughs)

HOW DID THE INTERVIEW COME ABOUT?

Whenever I talk to Petra Černocká, I feel nostalgic, because her wedding in Kytlice in 2004 was one of the first events to which I was sent as a journalist by the editorial office. After all, Petra has always been nice to me – with her sense of humor and straightforward demeanor, when she doesn’t need to hide behind evasive answers and gibberish. And it remains so.