Karel Effa (1922-1993)

Karel Effa's name was actually Karel Effenberger. Although he was not born in Příbram, but on 23 May 1922 in Prague, we can still count him among the personalities of Příbram. Especially the people of Březové Hory are proud of him - he was brought up as an illegitimate child in Březové Hory. He spent his childhood there and graduated from the municipal school. Then he returned to Prague, but he was very fond of the peaceful life in the mining town, as we can see in the pages of his autobiography In the Sign of Chance.

He studied at the trade academy in Beroun, but did not finish his studies and in 1940 he joined a military unit in Hradec Králové, which soon became part of the Czech government army. During the deployment of this troop to fight in Italy, Effa learned the cruelties of war, but also solidarity, sacrifice and the power of friendship. He describes all this again in his book of memoirs.

After the war, Effa stayed in the army as a sergeant in Vít Nejedlý's Army Art Ensemble, but soon he was offered a part in the film Uloupená hranic / The Looted Border by director Jiří Weiss, and this definitely decided his future acting career. Although he did not have an acting background, he was a guarantee of entertainment and was therefore often sought out by directors of both variety shows and theatrical comedies. He began his artistic career in 1947 at the Theatre of Satire in Prague, then moved to the Musical Theatre in Karlín, where he worked with a five-year break until 1979, also appearing on the stage of the ABC and Semafor theatres.

He made his film debut in 1947 with a role in the film Uloupená hranic / The Stolen Frontier. In the same year, he appeared in five other films, including the comedy The Last Strongman and the hilarious play Nobody Knows Anything. By the end of the 1940s, he had starred in several other comedies - The Iron Grandfather, The Family Tramps of Officer Tříška, as well as in dramas such as The Village in the Borderlands and Alfréd Radok's Far Away.

Although Effa did not play the main character in any of the films and was one of the so-called "big actors in small roles", he managed to attract attention even on a small screen. This was due to his talent, for the seriousness and devotion he gave to each character, and also due to his physical disposition: his appearance, his thin physique and his large hooked nose seemed to predestine him for the roles of villains, in which he was truly unmissable. The golden period in his career could be called the 1960s and early 1970s. It was then that Effa appeared in smaller roles in such comedy hits as Baron Mouser (1961), When the Cat Comes (1963), Lemonade Joe or The Horse Opera (1964), Who Wants to Kill Jessie (1966), The Mad Princess (1968), I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970), Sir, You Are a Widow (1970), Four Murders Are Enough, Darling (1970) and On the Comet (1970). From the 1970s, it is especially Circus in the Circus (1975), the children's film Let the Spirits Live (1977), the detective parody by Oldřich Lipský Adéla ještě neveřela (1977) or the horror fairy tale The Ninth Heart by Juraj Herz.

In the 1980s, Effa starred in television series such as The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman, Today in a House, The Hamster in the Nightgown, Flying Chester and Hospital on the Edge of Town. He has also played small roles in several films, including Forman's Amadeus and Juraj Jakubisko's Perinbaba. He was the author of dozens of tramp songs, some of which have become popular. In 1982 he was awarded the Meritorious Worker of Czechoslovak Cinema award.

Karel Effa's last film was the TV fairy tale A co ten ruksak, králi (What about the backpack, king), and then he appeared in 1990 in the sequel to the children's series Arabela. Due to the medication he was given for a serious illness, he didn't look much like himself at that time. Shortly before his death, his circle closed where he grew up. He returned to Pribram, but unfortunately to the hospital, where he was hospitalized for a few months. Karel Effa died on 11 June 1993 in Prague.



Sources:

Pikartová, Táňa. The circle of the bravura actor Karel Effa closed in Příbram. Příbramský deník, 2005, vol. 14, no. 27, p. 4.

BIČÍK, Marek. Comedian in film and in life: Karel Effa entertained film audiences and his acting colleagues. Mladá fronta Dnes. 2006, vol. 17, no. 176, p. 5, supplement. ISSN 1210-1168.

Prepared by: Hana Pegová, Jan Drda Library in Příbram