Celebrity Biographies
Ivan Passer
He was one of the representatives of the New Wave of Czechoslovak cinema. Ivan Passer, director of films such as “Stalin” and “Intimate Illumination”, died on January 9, 2020, at the age of 86, at his residence in Reno, Nevada.
Born in the capital of the Czech Republic, on July 10, 1933, Ivan Passer attended the King George boarding school in Poděbrady as a child. There he met future filmmakers Jerzy Skolimowski and Milos Forman . He became a good friend of the latter, when he met him at the Prague Film Academy. He co-wrote several of his early films, such as The Love of a Blonde and Firefighters! (1967), both nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He makes his feature film debut with Intimate Illumination , about a city musician put up by an old friend in his country house. It is considered by much of the critics as his masterpiece, and the cast includes Vera Kresadlová , then wife of Milos Forman .
In 1968, Ivan Passer runs away with Forman to pursue a career in Hollywood. There he would fully develop the rest of his filmography, with titles like Born to Win or The Wishing Tree . He was also behind numerous television movies, such as the biographical Stalin , starring Robert Duvall for HBO in 1992. He married actress Eva Límanová. They both had a son Ivan Passer Jr. who has worked in the world of cinema, as a production assistant.