Young Gott on the streets of Hamburg. In Germany, the singer was no less popular than in the USSR.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
In theory, the “Prague Nightingale” Karel Gott could serve as proof that under socialism the simplest boy or girl can become a superstar, if only he had talent. As they sang in “Kuban Cossacks”, “the road is open to any horse breeder.” Karel graduated in electrical engineering from a vocational school and worked for several years at a tram factory, and then became the number one singer in Czechoslovakia, a 42-time winner of the Golden Nightingale award, which is awarded to the most popular performer in the country. Everything is so, but there was nothing proletarian in Karel Gott’s appearance and songs: for many women in the Soviet Union (or, for example, in Germany), Gott seemed the embodiment of male beauty.
YOUNG STAR
And Karel didn’t want to be an electrician. As a child, he dreamed of being an artist, but he couldn’t get into the Academy of Fine Arts. The alternative was singing, but Karel’s father insisted that his son master a “real” profession. During the day he tinkered with electricity, and at night he performed in clubs.
He was noticed. They say that in those years there was a lack of good tenors on the Czech stage and Karel filled the vacant spot. Soon Gott left the tramway, began performing and touring (he first came to the USSR at the age of 23), with success both in the GDR and in the Federal Republic of Germany. (Karel had an innate talent for languages, he mastered German very easily, and also fluently sang songs in Russian, English, Hungarian…) He studied at the conservatory, where his teacher was the Russian singer Konstantin Karenin, a student of Chaliapin.
ARMSTRONG’S FRIEND
Probably, if Karel had been born in the USSR, it would have been difficult for him to travel around the world. But the young singer left Czechoslovakia relatively easily. In Montreal, at the Expo 67 exhibition, he caused a sensation; at the MIDEM festival in Cannes, he received a deafening ovation (the level of volume was measured: only the British Tom Jones received the same applause). And then he was offered a 7-month engagement in Las Vegas, and the government also let him go there with a light heart… He acquired many fans, among whom were Louis Armstrong, Gilbert Beco, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington.
This seems to require some kind of dramatic turnaround – a fall after such a rise. But no. The 1970s were even more successful than the 1960s. In Germany, his records sold better than those of ABBA and the Bee Gees. The album “Karel Gott”, recorded in the USSR by the Melodiya company, easily sold 4.5 million copies in our country. When Czech President Vaclav Havel resigned in 2003, there was serious talk of nominating Gott for the post (he, fortunately, announced in time that he was not interested).
Many women dreamed of walking down the aisle with the “Czech Nightingale”, but only nurse Ivana succeeded. It was she who was able to prolong Karel’s life.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
“AT 70, EVERYTHING IS JUST BEGINNING!”
At that time, his personal life became more interesting for him. A womanizer, who had many affairs with beauties and became the father of two illegitimate daughters, he stubbornly avoided marriage. But at the beginning of the 21st century, he began a long-term relationship with nurse Ivana Makhachkova, who was 37 years his junior. She gave birth to his third daughter, Charlotte Ella, and eventually convinced him to walk down the aisle (and he walked down the aisle while pregnant with another girl, Nellie Sophie). The wedding took place in Las Vegas, a city that Gott fell in love with after his performances in the late 1960s. In an interview, he said: “With marriage, values changed, I realized: at 70, life is just beginning. Now my main task is to take the girls to school.”
He was probably lucky with his wife, especially with her profession. In any case, in the mid-2010s, Gott fell ill: he was diagnosed with lymphoma, had to undergo a long course of chemotherapy, and his wife helped him a lot. He recovered. I managed to take my daughters to school many, many times. His 80th birthday in 2019 was celebrated almost as a public holiday in the Czech Republic.
And a couple of months later, Karel Gott announced that he was battling another type of cancer – acute leukemia. And this time cancer won: on October 1, 2019, Karel Gott died. In violation of all laws on state symbols, the President of the Czech Republic decided to lower the state flags at his palace. And 50,000 people came to say goodbye to the “Prague Nightingale” – the pop singer with the sweetest voice in the history of the Czech Republic…
