Actor, voice actor and gay rights activist Jiří Hromada died this Monday at the age of 66. He played hundreds of roles on radio, television and films, and was also the president of the Actors’ Association between 2011 and 2017. The news of the death was confirmed by his successor Ondřej Kepka. “I learned about it from the family,” Kepka said.
According to the newspaper Blesk, Hromada died in the hospital for long-term patients in Prague’s Na Františku Hospital, where he spent his last years.
Jiří Hromada was born on June 14, 1958 in Chomutov. Even before studying at the Prague DAMU, he worked in amateur ensembles, performed in the Disk Theater during student performances. After his studies, he got a job at the EF Buriana Theater in Prague, where he stayed for ten seasons between 1981 and 1991. At that time, he also received the Prize of the Czech Literary Fund. Since the Velvet Revolution, he has also worked in theater management.
After its closure, Hromada limited his theatrical activities and devoted himself to dubbing and radio. Above all, since the beginning of the 1990s, he advocated for the rights of homosexuals and other sexual minorities. For several years, Gay led the initiative that sought the adoption of the Law on Registered Partnerships. The bill, which enabled same-sex couples to legally enter into unions, inherit from each other or obtain health information about their partner, came into force in the Czech Republic in 2006.
“The main thing was the journey. In 1990, only 10 percent of citizens accepted us, in 2006 it was already seventy-five percent, last year 80. This is important,” he said four years ago in Petr Vizina’s podcast, where he looked back on his activities.
“When I started as the head of the gay movement, I found out that it was not worth going to the members of the government or parliament right away,” he explained his strategy. “There are a lot of older secretaries around their bosses, and because it’s a demanding job and you have to spend evenings and weekends with it, people with children and families didn’t have time for it. The secretaries I called were gay or lesbian. They advised me where to to go, what to do. They sped up our whole process,” he said.
Jiří Hromada was mostly devoted to acting before the revolution. | Photo: Libor Fojtík
After the revolution, the actor became the editor-in-chief of the cultural and social magazine for the gay and lesbian community, Soho Revue, or the monthly magazines Parlament and Gayčko. He also worked as a director of the publishing house Orbis.
In 2008, he received the award of the Color Planet portal for extraordinary contribution to the LGBT minority, in 2019 he also added the Prague Pride Award for lifetime contribution to the community.
Hromada, who acted in 200 television productions or programs and 15 films, tried, among other things, a political career. He ran several times for the Green Party. In October 2018, he joined the Prague 1 council and sat on the cultural commission there. Between 2007 and 2010, he was the head of advisers to the then Minister for Human Rights Džamila Stehlíková from the Green Party.