Relja Basic has died, the legendary actor passed away at age 87
Jutarnji Kultura
By Jutarnji.hr
April 8, 2017
Relja Basic was born in Zagreb on 14 February 1930. His mother Elly Basic was a well-known Croatian music teacher and pianist. He received his name from his stepfather Mladen Basic, the Croatian conductor. He graduated in acting from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in the class of dr. Gavella. In 1955, at the end of the study, director Bojan Stupica placed him in the Drama Ensemble Theater in Zagreb, where, realizing a number of roles with prominent directors (Stupica, Radojevic, Gavella, Paro, Habunek, Violić, Juvančić, Spaić) and playing 498 performances where he remained until 1967.
In 1968, Basic became a freelance artist as an actor and director for ITD, Comedy Theater, Zagreb Youth Theater, as well as the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. In these theaters he played 797 performances and directed its first six plays (Ljubaf, Crna komedija, Jedan dan u smrti Joe Egg, Stara vremena, Obećanja i Hotel Plaza).
In 1974 a group of prominent actors of his generation founded the first Croatian private traveling theater, in which he was the artistic director, actor and director until its termination in 2004. In the theater during his thirty years he performed 4,213 performances in 340 cities and towns Croatian, Yugoslavia and abroad.
On film Relja Basic made his debut during his studies at the historic concert Branko Belan (1954), one of the most important and the best works of Yugoslav film. This only precedes more outstanding performances in films that changed the course of Croatian and Yugoslav cinema, like Ronda Zvonimir Berković, who also won the Golden Arena in Pula in 1966. His interpretation of a man faced with a marriage in crisis, marked by a film that announced a completely new thinking in film media, and out of the box.
In 1970, the role of g. Fulir in Tko pjeva zlo ne misli Kreše Golika,he became an urban Croatian folklore icon.
His film career consisted of 56 domestic films, using the German, French, Slovenian, Italian and English language, and 71 international films including some of the biggest names in European and world film, such as Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Ustinov, Abel Gance, Robert Hossein, Lamont Johnson, James Cellan Jones, Alexandre Astruc, Mauro Bolognini, Wojtech Jasny, Luigi Magni, Wolfgang Becker and Giuliano Montaldo.
BASIC, Relja
Born: 2/14/1930, Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died: 4/7/2017, Zagreb, Croatia
Relja Bašić’s western – actor:
The Taste of Violence – 1961 (Commandante)