Adina Mandlová

Adina Mandlová (1910–1991) was a Czech actress, sex-symbol of the 1930s and European movie star.

The most controversial, dominating a lot of scandals, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, undertaking love affairs and then almost lynched... Adina Mandlová is a legend. According to one source, her true first name was Jarmila, but she had more front names and later she chose Adina, probably because it worked more exotically. She was born in Mladá Boleslav and grew in an unstable family. After changing several schools and jobs she eventually became a model girl. Her film career started in 1932 thanks to a second-rate movie "Děvčátko, neříkej ne!" (Girl, don't say no!), where she performed...a model girl. After another several movies she attracted Hugo Haas, who began to keep close company with her (closer than normally close) and recommended her to respected directors like Vávra or Frič. By the way, at that time she refused a role in Machatý's scandalous movie "Extáze" (Extasis, 1933), which was probably her life's fault, because the performer of the title role, Hedy Kiesler, later succeeded in Hollywood as Hedy Lamarre. However, during a short time Mandlová became an unofficial Number One among Czech actresses. The top of her career was "Kristián" (1939). I can also name "Panenství" (Virginhood, 1937), "Mravnost nade vše" (Morality above all, 1937), "Přítelkyně pana ministra" (A girlfriend of the minister, 1940), "Těžký život dobrodruha" (A hard life of an adventurer, 1941), "Noční motýl" (The Night Butterfly, 1941) etc. During the WW II Mandlová led a wild life and rumours about her scandals caused a growing aversion against her. For example, there was a rumour that she was a mistress of the German protector K. H. Frank (which was not true, and Frank disliked her because of it.). She was also invited to Germany, where Goebbels promised her big career, if she chooses a better pseudonym ("Lil Adina"). Mandlová refused and her stay in Berlin soon ended due to Frank's intrigues. After the end of the war it showed that popular "rumours" concerning her alleged contacts with Nazis were malicious fabrications and she actually helped her former boyfriend, who had escaped from a concentration camp. However, the public demand for her punishment was stronger than facts. In May 1945 she was arrested and according to her own memoirs, one warder, who was her big fan, saved her from lynching in the front of the prison. (That she can really thank him a lot can be illustrated by the fact that director Jan Sviták, a Nazi quisling, was then lynched and subsequently shot death in a Prague street.) Then she was strongly persecuted and eventually married British pilot Joe Knight, which enabled her to emigrate to the Great Britain (1947). Here she tried to continue in her film career, but with changeable success. In 1948 she acted in a movie The Fool And The Princess, but that was practically everything, because soon after she was taken ill with tuberculosis and healed in Switzerland. Her marriage crashed and Mandlová was forced to earn money by different ways, among other things as a collaborator of a costume designer Bill Pearson, whom she later married. In the end, she lived in Malta together with her husband. Here she also wrote a bitter biography Dnes se tomu směju (Today I Am Laughing Over It, 1976). In 1991, she returned home after 45 years. Here the "old, sick and impatient lady" came to die. Despite the negative picture surrounding her figure, she was an excellent actress.

Most important roles

Život je pes – Eva Durdysová Holka nebo kluk? – Ada Bártů Cech panen Kutnohorských – Rozina Kristian – Zuzana Rendlová Kouzelný dům – Marie Ungrová Přítelkyně pana ministra – Julie Svobodová Pacientka dr. Hegla – Karla Janotová Hotel Modrá hvězda – Milada Landová Okouzlená – Milada Jánská Noční motýl – Anča, zvaná Kiki Šťastnou cestu – Helena Truxová