Jiří Helekal (born 13 February 1947, in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) is a multi-talented Czech singer and performer who has maintained his fame through forty years of his career in his native land. He is capable of playing many musical instruments, as well being a professional actor, appearing in many successful musicals.

Early life

Jiri Helekal grew up in the centre of Prague, near today's

Praha hlavní nádraží Praha hlavní nádraží is the largest railway station in Prague, Czech Republic. It opened in 1871 as Franz Josef Station, after Franz Joseph I of Austria. During the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, First Republic and History of Czechoslov ...

. He has been focused on music since he was 22, when he started to play the violin. But he was soon also fascinated by playing the cello and switched over to it. He was taught by Professor Sadl and afterwards successfully graduated from Jezek's Conservatory; he became even more interested in music. He had to postpone his artistic work due to compulsory military service. Eventually the break took longer – he worked as a furniture remover and also unloaded wood and coal.

Significance

When he achieved his first musical successes, Jiri Helekal was already able to play the guitar, violin, cello, piano, flute, banjo, contrabass, accordion and others. One of his first greater successes was in a band called ''Shut Up'' (beat and country). Then he defected to a band called “Comets” (rock'n'roll, twist, rhythm & blues, soul, big beat, pop), at that time composed of Hladik (guitar), Žižka (saxophone),

Vladimír Mišík Vladimír Mišík (born 8 March 1947) is a Czech musician and politician. He is the founder or co-founder of the bands The Matadors, Matadors, Blue Effect, and Etc (band), Etc.... Career Music Mišík founded his first band, Uragán, as a teena ...

and Jan Hrůza (both sang with Helekal). Later he established his own, mainly country, path. Supported by his two daughters (Katerina and Aneta) he found ‘Hele-kaly family’ and released five albums: ''Rambler oasis 1'', ''Rambler oasis 2'', ''Rambler oasis 3'', ''Ringlet in the grass'' and ''At the time''. At the turn of the 60's and 70's his acting career took off. Between 1969 and 1973 he performed in the ''

Semafor Semafor is a theatre in Prague, Czech Republic, established by Jiří Suchý and Ferdinand Havlík in 1959. Suchý has performed there for many years and is the current owner. The theatre was a starting point for many famous Czech musicians ...

'' theatre (a very prestigious theatre in Prague) and then went on to the

Broadway Theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...

(also a popular Prague theatre specializing mainly in musicals), where he is still acting in musicals, for instance Cleopatra (his biggest success), Angelica and The Three Musketeers. {{DEFAULTSORT:Helekal, Jiri 1947 births Living people 21st-century Czech male singers Singers from Prague 20th-century Czech male singers Czechoslovak male singers