Ivan Jandl

Ivan Jandl was born in 1937 to the family of accountant Klement Jandl and his wife, Bozena. When he was three, he suffered from polio, and it seemed that he would not be able to walk again, but a Dr. Pribramsky managed to do what seemed a miracle: Ivan was soon practically perfectly well. While at school, he played in the school theater and later joined the famed Disman Children's radio choir. From the choir, it was just a step to various roles in radio plays. His first film appearance was a very small role in Martin Fric's "Varúj!" but he remained with radio, which was where Fred Zinnemann chose him in an audition for The Search. After the film's success, Ivan got lots of fan mail from all over the world, and in 1949 he received a telegram, an approximate translation of which reads: "You won the Academy Award for outstanding child actor. Congratulations. F. Zinnemann," followed the next day by an explanation (because Oscars were not generally known there at the time) from the production company (Praesens Film): "An Oscar is the highest award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Congratulations." Ivan couldn't attend the ceremony, so the Oscar was brought to him in Prague by some members of the academy. There he received many offers (films and contracts), but it was decided by the government that he was to be "preserved to be used by the Czech film industry," but ironically, he went on to make only 3 films: 1 in 1949, 1 in 1951, and 1 in 1955. After graduating from high school, Ivan wanted to study at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), but he was told he should not have accepted an award from the American film industry and was thus turned down. He then changed careers many times, only to return to the radio in 1965 as a program manager, becoming an announcer in 1969. In 1972, he was forced to leave radio. He had a brief stint as a stage manager in a theater in Teplice, and that was all there was for him in show business. In 1985, for the first time since 1948, he met Jarmila Novotna, the famed opera singer who portrayed his mother in The Search. In 1987, Ivan died at the age of 50 of diabetic complications in his apartment in Prague.