Milos Forman(1932-2018)
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to
Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor.
During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after
being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His
father died in Buchenwald and his mother died in Auschwitz, and Milos
became an orphan very early on. He studied screen-writing at the Prague
Film Academy (F.A.M.U.). In his Czechoslovakian films,
Black Peter (1964),
A Blonde in Love (1965),
and The Firemen's Ball (1967), he
created his own style of comedy. During the invasion of his country by
the troops of the Warsaw pact in the summer of 1968 to stop the Prague
spring, he left Europe for the United States. In spite of difficulties,
he filmed Taking Off (1971) there and
achieved his fame later with
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
adapted from the novel of Ken Kesey, which won
five Oscars including one for direction. Other important films of Milos
Forman were the musical Hair (1979) and his
biography of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Amadeus (1984), which won eight Oscars.
