RIP Karel Fiala

 

Czech actor Karel Fiala, known as the star of the film “Lemonade Joe”, has died at the age of 95. Fiala spent the last years of his life at a hospital in Prague. The actor celebrated his greatest success in the 1950s on stage at the Musical Theater in Karlín. In 2013, Karel Fiala received the Thalia Award for lifetime contribution in the field of musicals. Fiala literally acquired his life role at the last minute. It was originally supposed to be played by Jiří Kodet, but his mother Jiřina Steimarová recommended to the director her colleague from the Karlín Theater, who was exactly the right type for the sleek and comically noble Lemonade Joe. Karel did not sing in the film, because the playbacks had already been shot with Karel Gott. But he would certainly have been able to handle the demanding singing parts, because his domain was operetta and musical. Karel Fiala was still very active even in his old age, he played tennis after the age of eighty-eight and enjoyed great family reunions. After 2000, he still played in the magnificent musical Count Monte Christo and said goodbye in 2010 again in Karlín in a new production of Lemonade Joe as his old father Kolalok.