“I never did what I didn’t want, what didn’t suit me,” he said in an interview. Stanislaw Janicki – Film historian, writer, director, screenwriter, university lecturer, legend of Polish television.
He was born on November 11, 1933 in Čekovice-Dziedzitsi. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism (Cinema major) at the University of Warsaw (1955). He received his doctorate in humanities from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.
He said during a meeting with the audience in 2013: “The first movie I saw was Walt Disney’s Snow White. It was in the Roma Room in Warsaw just before the outbreak of war. I remembered this movie very clearly.” On the occasion of his eightieth birthday. “The turning point was my studies at the Faculty of Journalism, specializing in cinema under Professor Jerzy Toeplitz. He was not only a great theorist and film historian, but also a great teacher, and I think he somehow instilled in me this interest in cinema.” Movie” – male.
He added, “I was not interested in Polish cinema before the war at all. This fascination came later.”
Pre-war movie stars had no secrets for him. He talked about them in a cult series “In old cinema” (1967-1999), the longest-running original program in the history of Polish television. The series first appeared on television in 1967.
“One time, my friend from college, Hania Gosczynska, who worked in television, called me to say that it was a disaster, because the journalist running the program on the film was sick, and that he was looking for a replacement, and that the program was going to be broadcast live,” he said. . I reacted to the suggestion of an alternative with some horror, but when a woman asks, she doesn’t say no. “At first I had three conversations with Polish directors, and then things went well.” The author of the blog “Stare-kino.pl” recalls the beginnings of his adventure with TVP.
Stanislaw Janicki turned out to be a “TV animal”, so he quickly got an offer to host his periodic program “In the Old Cinema”. The production was extremely popular from the first episode, and Stanisław Janicki quickly became one of Polish television’s biggest stars. Viewers loved his signature “er” style and dark glasses.
“It was said that I imitated Zbyszek-Cybulski, and later – Augusto Pinochet and even Wojciech Jaruzelski. But that was for practical reasons. The TV lights at that time had a very bright light. I only wore them in the TV studio. Thank you for these black glasses, I appeared without them wherever I went “I was not recognized and I had peace,” Janicki revealed in an interview.
Stanisław Janicki ran the “W Stare Kino” program for thirty years. Most viewers still remember the colorful stories and anecdotes about forgotten pre-war productions. In 1997, the program was withdrawn. TVP authorities found it old and outdated. It was suggested to Janicki that he needed to change it. He did not agree to this proposal.
“Over all these years, I got to know the rules of the Woronicza game well and left TV without any regrets,” he later said on the website “Stare-kino.pl”.
Leaving Telewizja Polska does not mean that Stanislaw Janicki has stopped working. Already as a retiree, he started collaborating with Kino Polska TV, where he presented “Kaleidscope of Polish Film” and “Seans w Iluzjon”. He worked at the Ursynów Art House in Warsaw, at the Historical Museum in Bielsko, at the Bielsko University of Business and Informatics and headed the Faculty of Information.
Stanisław Janicki recorded film columns for RMF Classic Radio in the series “Odeon of Stanisław Janicki”. In 2011, he received the RMF Classic Editorial Award for “instilling in us a love of old cinema”.
While receiving the award, he said: “It is exceptional and very exciting that this award is for something that I do not treat as a job, but rather as a beloved hobby.”
In 2018, the media reported that Stanislaw Janici married his classmate from the Faculty of Radio and Television of the University of Silesia in Katowice. The film historian was 84 years old at the time. They met more than 30 years ago and were co-workers. They renewed their friendship in 2014. The meeting after many years was decided by chance.
“I was going to a concert at the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, but I didn’t want to go alone. I thought: Ella is in Katowice! I called and asked her if she would go with me. She agreed. Then we went out to dinner. “I thought, ‘Ella is in Katowice!’” said the journalist, whose wife died in 2011.
Four years later, they got engaged and then married in Sułkowski Castle in Bielsko-Biała.
“The press treated it as a sensation. And I really don’t see anything unusual about it. We understand each other, we love each other, we respect each other, and that’s the most important thing. When someone like me, who still has an ‘appetite for life,’ It should come as no surprise that they don’t want to spend it alone and want to have a loved one by their side. “Age has nothing to do with it really,” Stanislaw Janicki admitted in an interview. “Tele Tegodnik”.
We wish the birthday boy all the best and lots of health on his 90th birthday!
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