East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1405, 1961.
Unforgettable eyes full of temperament
Valentina Thielová was born Valentina Strachovová in 1933 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic. Her parents emigrated from Russia but met in Prague. There they had three children, Valentina was the middle one.
The Nazi occupation fatefully interfered with her family's life when her father, Grigory Mitrofanovich Strachov, was arrested by the Gestapo. Her mother worked as a seamstress and Valentina helped her with sewing. The family believed that her father had perished, but this was not the case. However, he did not return home after the war and went to Venezuela, where he started a new family and had a son, Gregory. In 1955, he emigrated to the USA and died in 1975 in Paterson (New Jersey).
In school, Valentina recited, and in high school, she also performed in amateur theatre. She had to abandon her dream of becoming a ballerina because of joint problems. She did not finish her studies in high school and started to work as a clerk.
Her first husband was the poet Vladimír Thiele, who introduced her to Prague's bohemian community. She got her first small opportunity in the cinema in the short film Something has changed (1955), in which she played a nurse. Her expressive face with her blonde hair and unforgettable eyes full of temperament opened the doors to her acting career.
By chance, she met the director Josef Mach at a congress of Czechoslovak writers. He cast her in one of the lead roles in his film Florenc 13.30/Florence 13.30 (Josef Mach, 1957) as the seductive Miriam alongside Josef Bek. Her film debut was an unexpected popular success.
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1885, 1963. Photo: DEFA / Blasig. Valentina Thielová in Das Stacheltier - Der Dieb von San Marengo/The Thief of Marengo (Günter Reisch, 1963).
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2.298, 1965. Valentina Thielová in Bláznova kronika/The Jester's Tale (Karel Zeman, 1964).
A flair for drama
This successful debut definitely launched Valentina Thielová's career as an actress. She became the emcee in the Laterna magika troupe, with which she participated in the World Expo 58 in Brussels.
Another success was Zizkovská romance/Suburban Romance (Zbynek Brynych, 1958) in which she played a divorced woman with an irresistible sex appeal. Other major film roles followed, both at home and abroad.
She showed a flair for drama in such distinguished films as Destivý den/Rainy Day (Jiri Belka, 1962), and Boxer a smrt/Boxer and Death (Peter Solan, 1962) with Stefan Kvietik and Manfred Krug. She then received an offer from the DEFA in East Germany to appear in Der Dieb von San Marengo/The Thief of San Marengo (Günter Reisch, 1963) with Horst Drinda.
Of the Czech films of the 1960s, her most artistically valuable roles were probably in the historical comedy Bláznova kronika/The Jester's Tale (Karel Zeman, 1964) and Transit Carlsbad (Zbyněk Brynych, 1966) in which she played the lead role of Madame Elisabeth. After 1968, her artistic possibilities were limited, mainly due to the political attitudes of her second husband, Arpad Vilcek, and she was forced to perform with various touring theatres and variety troupes.
She reunited with Josef Mach for the thriller Na kolejích ceká vrah/There's a killer waiting in the dorms (Josef Mach, 1970), but her role was small. Her next major film role came more than ten years later as Professor Bozhenka in the film Sněženky a machři/Snowdrops and Aces (Karel Smyczek, 1982), a Czech film comedy about a group of high school students learning to ski in the mountains. This was followed by a number of smaller roles in films and TV series, mainly in the roles of grandmothers.
Valentina Thielová passed away in 2022 in the Czech Republic at the age of 89.
Big Czech postcard by Nakladatekstvi Orbis, Praha (Prague), no. F14-10147. Photo: V. Rosegnal.
Sources: Josef "tahit" B. (CSFD - Czech) Wikipedia (Czech and English) and IMDb.
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