Janusz Alfred Weiss (31 May 1948 – 10 March 2023) was a Polish journalist, actor, television personality and co-founder of the one of the most popular radio stations in Poland,

Radio ZET Radio Zet () is a Polish commercial radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcast ...

Biography

Weiss was born on 31 May 1948 as a son of the colonel of the

Internal Security Corps The Internal Security Corps ( pl, Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, KBW) was a special-purpose military formation in Poland under democratic government, established by the Council of Ministers on 24 May 1945. History The KBW consisted of 10 ...

Oskar Weiss (of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent) and Janina Weiss (of

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

descent). Weiss was studying at the

Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professor ...

. In March 1968 he was expelled from the university for his Jewish heritage and activities during

1968 Polish political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

. In 1970 Weiss started

Polish studies Polish studies, or Polonistics ( pl, filologia polska, or ''polonistyka'') is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates the Polish language and Polish literature in both historic and present-day forms. In the United State ...

at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

, but he had never finished them. In the early 1970s he founded a

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

group with

Magda Umer Magda Umer (; born Małgorzata Magda Umer, October 9, 1949) is a Polish singer and performer of sung poetry, journalist, author, film director, screenwriter, actress, and author of recitals. Biography She was born to Edward Umer, the head of the ...

, Krzysztof Knittel and Andrzej Wojciechowski. In the 1980s Janusz Weiss was performing in the Polish television as presenter and conferencier. In 1990 he was one of three founders of the radio station

. In the years 1990–2011, Weiss was presenting an audition "Dzwonię do Pani, Pana w bardzo nietypowej sprawie" (''Dear Madam, dear Sir, I'm calling you on a most unusual matter''), which was one of the most popular

radio programming Radio programming is the process of organising a schedule of radio content for commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting by radio stations. History The original inventors of radio, from Guglielmo Marconi's time on, expected it to be use ...

in Poland. In 2000 he published a book in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, "Jeden może, drugi nie" (''One can, the other can not''). As an actor he was known for polish Television Theater (1953), Kung-fu (1979) and Damned America (1993). From 1993 to 2005, he was a host of a game show called

Miliard w rozumie Miliard w rozumie (Billion in mind) is a Polish game show, produced by TVP3 Kraków under license of Polish Scientific Publishers PWN, transmitted in TVP1 from 1993 to 2005. Show was hosted by Janusz Weiss Janusz Alfred Weiss (31 May 1948 – ...

, transmitted under license of

Polish Scientific Publishers PWN Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i P ...

TVP1 TVP1 (TVP Jeden, ''Program I Telewizji Polskiej'', ''"Jedynka"'') is the main public television channel of TVP (Telewizja Polska S.A.), Poland's national television broadcaster. It was the first Polish channel to be broadcast and remains one ...

. In 2011 he received the

Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta ( pl, Order Odrodzenia Polski, en, Order of Restored Poland) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on al ...

.M.P. from 2011; no. 107-1077
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References

External Links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Janusz 1948 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Polish Jews Journalists from Warsaw Polish television presenters Polish radio presenters Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta