Oscar-Winning Czech Director Jiri Menzel Dies at Age 82

Director Jiri Menzel poses during a photocall to promote the film 'I Served The King Of England' at the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany February 16, 2007. (Reuters)
Director Jiri Menzel poses during a photocall to promote the film 'I Served The King Of England' at the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany February 16, 2007. (Reuters)
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Oscar-Winning Czech Director Jiri Menzel Dies at Age 82

Director Jiri Menzel poses during a photocall to promote the film 'I Served The King Of England' at the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany February 16, 2007. (Reuters)
Director Jiri Menzel poses during a photocall to promote the film 'I Served The King Of England' at the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany February 16, 2007. (Reuters)

Influential Czech director Jiri Menzel, whose 1966 movie “Closely Watched Trains” won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, has died at age 82, his wife, Olga Menzelova, said on her Facebook page.

Menzel was part of the Czech New Wave of filmmakers of the 1960s that included “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus” director Milos Forman and avant-garde director Vera Chytilova.

He struggled with serious health problems and rarely appeared in public after brain surgery in 2017.

“Dearest Jirka, I thank you for each and single day I could spend with you. Each was extraordinary. I am also grateful to you for the last three years, as hard as they were,” his wife wrote in her post.

She said Menzel died at home on Saturday.

Menzel gained fame for “Closely Watched Trains,” the coming-of-age story of a young train dispatcher in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War Two.

It was based on a novel by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, whose works were a source of other Menzel films, including “I Served the King of England” in 2006.

“I had more luck than reason,” he said in 2016, recalling his Oscar-winning movie. “More than all the prizes and medals I received for this movie, I valued the lifelong friendship with Hrabal.”

Like other directors of his generation, Menzel faced problems with Communist authorities.

His 1969 film, “Larks on a String,” depicting a group of politically persecuted people forced to work in a scrapyard, was not shown in his home country until 1990.

It went on to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1990.

Menzel excelled in bittersweet depictions of life, with doses of humor and nostalgia. Many of his works are revered among Czech audiences.

Menzel’s 1985 film, “My Sweet Little Village,” was nominated for an Oscar and a number of his other movies have become classics for Czech film watchers and directors.

Menzel also acted in dozens of movies and plays. A bachelor late into life, he and Menzelova, a film producer, married in 2004.

“I thank him for everything he did for us. Goodbye, sir!” film director Jan Hrebejk, who was nominated for an Oscar for his 2000 film, “Divided We Fall,” wrote on Twitter.



Connie Francis, Whose Hit Songs Included ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ and ‘Pretty Little Baby,’ Dies at 87

In this Nov. 27, 1978 file photo, singer Connie Francis poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. (AP)
In this Nov. 27, 1978 file photo, singer Connie Francis poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. (AP)
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Connie Francis, Whose Hit Songs Included ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ and ‘Pretty Little Baby,’ Dies at 87

In this Nov. 27, 1978 file photo, singer Connie Francis poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. (AP)
In this Nov. 27, 1978 file photo, singer Connie Francis poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. (AP)

Connie Francis, the wholesome pop star of the 1950s and ‘60s whose hits included “Pretty Little Baby” and “Who’s Sorry Now?” — the latter would serve as an ironic title for a personal life filled with heartbreak and tragedy — has died at age 87.

Radio DJ Bruce “Cousin Brucie” Morrow, a longtime friend, told The Associated Press that she died Wednesday at a hospital in Florida, the state where she had lived for years. Morrow did not cite a specific cause of death, but Francis had posted on social media earlier this month that she had been hospitalized with “extreme pain.”

Francis had gained renewed attention in recent months after “Pretty Little Baby” became a sensation on TikTok, with Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner among the many celebrities citing it.

“I’m flabbergasted and excited about the huge buzz my 1962 recording of ‘Pretty Little Baby’ is making all over the world,” she said in a video on TikTok, which she had joined in response to the song's unexpected revival. “To think that a song I recorded 63 years ago is captivating new generations of audiences is truly overwhelming for me.”

Francis was a top performer of the pre-Beatles era, rarely out of the charts from 1957-64. Able to appeal to both young people and adults, she had more than a dozen Top 20 hits, starting with “Who’s Sorry Now?” and including the No. 1 songs “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You” and “The Heart Has a Mind of Its Own.” Like other teen favorites of her time, she also starred in several films, including “Where the Boys Are” and “Follow the Boys.”

The dark-haired singer was just 17 when she signed a contract with MGM Records following appearances on several TV variety shows. Her earliest recordings attracted little attention, but then she released her version of “Who’s Sorry Now?” an old ballad by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.

It, too, had little success initially until Dick Clark played it on his “American Bandstand” show in 1958. Clark featured her repeatedly on “American Bandstand,” and she said in later years that without his support, she would have abandoned her music career.

Francis followed with such teen hits as “Stupid Cupid,” “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” and “Lipstick on Your Collar.” Her records became hits worldwide as she re-recorded versions of her original songs in Italian and Spanish, among other languages. Her concerts around the country quickly sold out.

Meanwhile, a romance bloomed with fellow teen idol Bobby Darin, who had volunteered to write songs for her. But when her father heard rumors that the pair was planning a wedding, he stormed into a rehearsal and pulled a gun on Darin, ending their relationship and seeming to set Francis on a pained and traumatic path.

She chronicled some of it in her autobiography, “Who’s Sorry Now?”

“My personal life is a regret from A to Z,” she told The Associated Press in 1984, the year the book came out. “I realized I had allowed my father to exert too much influence over me.”

Her father, George Franconero, was a roofing contractor from New Jersey who played the accordion. She was just 3 when her father presented her with a child-size accordion, as soon as she began to show an aptitude for music. When she was 4, he began booking singing dates for her, going on to become her manager.

Although her acting career had faded by the mid-1960s, Francis was still popular on the concert circuit when she appeared at the Westbury Music Fair in Westbury, New York, in 1974. She had returned to her hotel room and was asleep when a man broke in and raped her at knifepoint. He was never captured.

Francis sued the hotel, alleging its security was faulty, and a jury awarded her $2.5 million in 1976. The two sides then settled out of court for $1,475,000 as an appeal was pending. She said the attack destroyed her marriage and put her through years of emotional turmoil.

She suffered tragedy in 1981 when her brother George was shot to death as he was leaving his New Jersey home. Later that decade, her father had her committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed as manic-depressive. At one point, she tried to kill herself by swallowing dozens of sleeping tablets. After three days in a coma, she recovered.

Around that time, she wrote to President Ronald Reagan and volunteered to help others, calling herself ″America’s most famous crime victim.” Reagan appointed her to a task force on violent crime.

″I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” she told The New York Times in 1981. “I have my voice, a gift from God I took for granted before. He gave it back to me.″

She was married four times and would say that only her third husband, Joseph Garzilli, was worth the trouble. The other marriages each lasted less than a year.

Concetta Rosemarie Franconero was born on Dec. 12, 1937, in Newark, New Jersey. At age 9 she began appearing on television programs, including “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” and “The Perry Como Show.” It was Godfrey who suggested she shorten her last name.