July 1, 1923 · Nejdek, Czechoslovakia

July 4, 2000 · Prague, Czech Republic

[on why he and Alena Vránová refused a potential sequel to The Proud Princess (1952)]: "They sent me the script, but it was far from having the value, the wisdom, the pure fairy-tale humor of the first one. On the contrary, there were dramatic scenes, some of them even took place in tombs. King Miroslav and Krasomila live in estrangement and have a daughter who does whatever she wants, and so she begins to experience a story strikingly similar to the fate of her mother Krasomila. I wrote to Borivoj Zeman that I didn't think this version was a good idea, that it would damage the original film."