Marta Kubisova

Biography

Born 1 November 1942 in Ceske Budejovice, Kubisova's father was a cardiologist, her mother was a housewife, who later sold records in Celetna street in Prague. In 1952 the family moved to Podebrady. Wanting to get to college after graduating from high school, she started to work in Podebrady glassworks. Her singing career began with a dance group which performed in Nymburk at the afternoon teas. In 1961, she reached the finals in Hledame nove talenty ("The Search for Talent"). In 1962, she lost her job in the glass factory, and auditioned for the Stop Theatre in Pardubice. In 1963, she moved to Theatre Alpha in Plzen to perform in Black Dream, a production by Ludvik Askenazy. She began collaborating with Vaclav Neckar and Helena Vondrackova in December 1965, when preparing for performances of Waiting for Fame. In 1967 she won Zlaty slavik. A song, "Prayer for Marta", with lyrics by Petr Rada, became a symbol of national resistance against the occupation of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. On 1 November of that year, she joined with Neckar and Vondrackova to create the popular group, 'Golden Kids'. In 1969 she won her second Zlaty slavik award and married film director Jan Nemec. A year later, she won the Zlaty slavik a third time, but she had to receive the award in secrecy of the office of the Mlady svet magazine due to the commencing normalization. The last performance of the Golden Kids took place on 27 January 1970 in Ostrava.

In February 1970, the government banned her from performing in the country on the pretext of alleged pornography, based on the three falsified photo-montages as evidence. She took the director of record label Supraphon, Hrabal, to court for libel, and although she won, she only had her rights fully restored 20 years later, after the Czechoslovak communist regime fell in 1989. During that time, she could only perform at underground invitation-only events. In the late 1980s, she auditioned to become singer of the group The Plastic People of the Universe, but this was disallowed by the secret police.

In 1971, she suffered a miscarriage in the eighth month of pregnancy and survived clinical death. She married director Jan Moravec after divorcing her husband Jan Nemec, who had emigrated to the United States. After signing Charter 77, her prosecution and monitoring by the communist state secret police escalated. From 1977 to 1978 she participated as a spokesperson for Charter 77.

On 1 June 1979, she gave birth to her daughter Katerina. On 10 December 1988 after a long absence from the public eye, she appeared at a demonstration on the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, during which she sang the Czechoslovak national anthem. On 22 November 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, she sang "Prayer for Martha" and the Czechoslovak national anthem from a balcony on Wenceslas Square. Then followed the reissue of Songy a Balady, and in 1990 she returned to the studio and the stage. On 2 June 1990 she performed the famous show "Marta v Lucerne", for which she was awarded the Golden Nightingale in 1970. The music was performed by the group Energit and directed by Lubos Andrst, with whom she then went on tour to perform 60 concerts around Czechoslovakia, as well as shows in Japan, Paris and Berlin. In 1991 she co-hosted Advent concerts. Two years later she rejoined with Vondrackova and Neckar in a Golden Kids comeback. On 28 October 1995 she received the a state award – the Medal of Merit – from President Vaclav Havel. Adam Georgiev released her biography, Chytat slunce (Catching the Sun), in 1995. On 7 March 1998, she was awarded the Honorary Medal of T.G. Masaryk at a ceremony in the ballroom of Prague Castle. In October 2002, she was bestowed with the St. Wenceslas Honours. Three years later, her second biographical book Asi to tak sam Buh chtel, written by Lubos Necas, was published.

For several years, she regularly prepared recitals her home stage at the Prague Ungelt Theatre. There she also appeared in a chamber musical Lip se louci v nedeli, and was awarded the Thalia prize for her performance. In 2005 she released a novelty album, Vitej, lasko, the full text to which was written by John Schneider. In 2008 Supraphon released her first DVD.

In 2011 the play by Malgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk based on Kubisova's life was staged at International Theatre Festival DEMOLUDY in Olsztyn, Poland.

Golden Kids

1. Micro magic circus (Supraphon, 1969)
2. Golden Kids 1 (Supraphon, 1970)

Solo

1. Songy a balady (1969, 1996)
2. Lampa (1990)
3. Nekdy si zpivam (1991)
4. Singly 1 (1996)
5. Nechte zvony znit (Singly 2) (1997)
6. Dejte mi kousek louky (Singly 3) (1998)
7. Modlitba (Singly 4) (1999)

Films and TV

1. Patrani po Ester (2005)
2. Kamenak 2 (2004)
3. Zdivocela zeme II (2001)
4. Zpoved Ungelt (2000)
5. Nocni hovory s matkou (1999)
6. Stalo se na podzim (1994)
7. Hodnota tvare (1992)
8. Zvlastni bytosti (1990)
9. Vrazda ing. Certa (1970)
10. Proudy lasku odnesou (1969) (TV)
11. Bylo ctvrt a bude pul (1968)
12. Kulhavy dabel (1968)
13. Gramo / Hit 68 (1968) (TV)
14. Nahrdelnik melancholie - Sedm pisni Marty Kubisove (1968)
15. Jak se krade milion (1967)
16. Pisen pro Rudolfa III. (1967)
17. Mucednici lasky (1966)
18. Vysila studio A (1966)
19. Revue v mlze (1966)