Few viewers would remember Vida Skalská-Neuwirthová by name. However, it is enough to mention the obnoxious Bosana from the Three Veterans, and everyone will think of a naughty and spoiled princess, whom daddy the king fulfilled everything he saw in her eyes, and only the enchanted long-haired nose gave her a lesson.
The young actress became very popular thanks to Bosana, but she decided to return to the children’s theater and the Feigel troupe, which she founded before filming the fairy tale. And with regard to his roots, he tries to spread awareness of Judaism among the younger generation. She already has the children of her first child actors in her choir, which she is rightly proud of.
Although a good number of years have passed since the filming of the fairy tale, Vida is still very similar, and her big black eyes and raven hair are unmistakable. When she is not rehearsing theater or taking her children to shows, she works as a tour guide in Prague or Terezín, writes books, records CDs and, after raising two sons, enjoys her role as a grandmother.
In an older interview, the fabulous Bosana talked about her Jewish origin. It wasn’t until she was fourteen that her parents revealed the history of the family. As a younger child, they did not want to burden her with Jewishness, because the time of their origin did not favor her much. Even her father didn’t tell her as a little girl what the tattooed number on his arm meant. As she grew up, she learned little by little about her relatives. Some of the information was very sad. The lives of 30 of her relatives were extinguished in the concentration camps alone. Her father went through Terezín, then Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buchenwald. At the end of the war, he managed to escape the death march and remained in hiding until the end of the war. He actually got lucky twice because Dr. Mengele experimented on him a bit in Auschwitz, which didn’t end well for most of the patients.
When Vida started going to the Jewish community and getting an education, she realized that she should do something so that Jewish children have the opportunity to learn something about their origins. And she decided on the theater. Her parents weren’t too happy about it. They were afraid that he would complicate his life, because it was still a time when it was not good to stand out.
However, she established herself in the theater and started rehearsing performances with the children. Before every performance, she had to apply to the police for permission for a cultural program. When she stated that it was a fairy tale for children, no one looked for exactly what the theater had to offer. The fact that they were biblical stories was no longer investigated.
The actress inherited the exotic name from her mother, so despite the strict rules for names, she was allowed to use it on the matric. Mom came up with the name easily. Grandfather wanted Vida, but grandmother had no idea at the time that this was the name of his first great love from Montenegro. The name originates far back in history, when the brave Dalmatian warrior Vid lived. Vida is the feminine form of his name.
Before Vida finally decided to work with children, she thought about the acting career, which is why she auditioned. Zdeněk Svěrák was looking for a young woman with large eyes set far apart and with an oriental appearance. When she appeared, Svěrák immediately called Lipský that he no longer needed to look. She just tried on the practice nose and the role was hers.
He still remembers the entire filming with a smile. She still had two assistants with rods to carry her two-and-a-half-meter long nose. The worst part was gluing the nose, which took about an hour and left the skin very irritated after the glue. Rudolf Hrušínský even asked for an increase in her fee when he saw the trouble she had with her nose.
Everyone was very nice to her on set, they didn’t even forget her birthday. The vodka was brought in just as her nose was taped up, so she had to sip the toast with a small spoon, which gave her a slight hangover.
What surprised her the most was that the biggest acting stars behaved like ordinary people, without star mannerisms, without promotion and arrogance. After a while, she realized how lucky she was to be able to spend some time in their presence.
After the success of the fairy tale, everyone advised her to pursue a career, but she was closer to the work she was doing. She went back to acting and played a role in Vesnička má středisková, for example, but she still struggles with the fact that people recognize her as Bosana.
