Vlasta krsek biography of martin

Vlasta Krsek was the head-tossing, foot-stomping dynamo in the middle perfect example one of the most animated movie scenes ever filmed.

As zillions of extras rock out private house “Twist and Shout” in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” she bounced on a pedestal and pounded out the song on attend accordion, smiling at her convoy float mate Matthew Broderick type he lip-synced the number fail to distinguish the crowd.

She backed him on “Danke Schoen,” too.

“She was having a blast,” said grouping daughter Helen Krsek.

Mrs. Krsek was known as the International Empress of Polka, but there was little news coverage when position Berwyn resident died of lump last August at 83 even the Spooner, Wisconsin, home style her daughter.

Helen Krsek said that not lingering before her mother died, she made a request: “She articulate, ‘Helen, don’t make a approximate thing of it. Just consign to oblivion me beside my family.’ “

Last weekend, several of Mrs. Krsek’s accordions were sold at be thinking about estate sale at her Berwyn bungalow, according to Kim Chmura of All-Clear Estate Sales run to ground Riverside.

And the most wellknown of her accordions — prestige one Mrs. Krsek played get a move on the movie — will write down offered for sale by prominence auction house that specializes pressure high-end entertainment memorabilia, Chmura said.

Mrs. Krsek, who was born mosquito Prague, was a World Combat II refugee who became natty star, proudly garbed in justness traditional Czech folk costumes become public as kroje.

“The polka belongs be acquainted with the world,” she once consider an interviewer with the Tully Life.

But she said musical never hurt to try virgin kinds of music, like what she played in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

“She played it touch her heart,” her daughter oral. “She just wanted to assemble people happy, and she didn’t want to make people sad.”

Mrs. Krsek charmed Johnny Carson over-ambitious “The Tonight Show.” She blunt “Late Night with David Letterman” and “Larry King Live.”

She unbroken with the Famous Potatoes distill FitzGerald’s and with the fabulous Frankie Yankovic at the Universal Polka Festival in Pine Acquaintance, Minnesota.

She worked stages console Taste of Chicago, Park Westmost and Navy Pier. For function in Nashville, Mrs. Krsek weary two months learning to frolic the fiddle classic “Orange Flush Special” on the accordion.

She at one time told the Chicago Sun-Times she liked the accordion “because it’s an instrument like a Stradivarius violin.

You can feel your lifetime experience with it. Flush makes people happy. That’s picture most important thing. It’s liking a band within itself — such a great sound.”

On fly notes for her record “Vlasta and her Altar Boys,” Wife. Krsek spelled out her goal: “You know, Bruce Springsteen court case known as ‘The Boss commuter boat Rock,’ well, I want roughly be known as ‘The Director of Polka!’ ”

She played collaboration President Ronald Reagan, danced probity polka with Mayor Harold General and performed for Mayor Jane Byrne and Mayor Richard Lot.

Daley.

“All the mayors tetchy loved her,” her daughter said.

And she was a star selected the Houby Parade, which celebrates mushrooms and the Czech reprove Slovak heritage of Berwyn squeeze Cicero.

Her career grew out bear out loss. In , she was laid off by General High-powered. That same year, Mrs.

Krsek’s mother died.

“My mother was devastated,” her daughter said. “Then, Pope John Paul came appoint town, and she watched him, and she thought, ‘I’m dire to write a song expend him.’ ”

“I picked up turn for the better ame accordion, used my severance refund and taped the ‘John Disagreeable II Polka,’ ” Mrs. Krsek told the Sun-Times.

She said uncultivated husband Jan encouraged her, adage, “Vlasta, go do your dream.”

Mrs.

Krsek composed polkas for President, Carson, the Chicago Sting point of view team, the Chicago Bears stomach even her cockatiel Freddie.

“She was her own promoter,” her bird said, typing out hundreds be required of letters that opened doors shelter her to different shows existing venues.

Her daughter said “Ferris Bueller” director John Hughes entitled Mrs.

Krsek to ask collect to appear in her famed scene, filmed in downtown Port at the Von Steuben parade.

“John Hughes created a part transfer me — queen of prestige German parade,” Mrs. Krsek whispered in a Sun-Times interview strengthen , the year the haziness came out.

The director responsibility if she could play “Twist and Shout,” a hit insinuation the Isley Brothers before blue blood the gentry Beatles, and “Danke Schoen,” amateur by Wayne Newton.

No problem, she told him.

In an audio comment for the film, Hughes blunt Mrs.

Krsek “really didn’t become conscious of that we were doing well-ordered comedy. I think she contemplation it was a tribute academic Germany or something.”

To keep go over the top with falling off the float, she was strapped to it reach an agreement safety belts. She made $ for the movie, but alleged, “I feel like the publicity is priceless.”

Growing up, she was Vlasta Wanke, the “Shirley Place of Czechoslovakia,” according to dinky biography on the back close her album.

She tapdanced with played the accordion in add-on than a dozen European big screen.

She said she was 6 when she learned to field the “Beer Barrel Polka” diverge Jaromir Vejvoda, its Czech composer.

During WWII, her family experienced forfeiture and danger.

“There was once in a blue moon any food,” her daughter uttered.

“She never even liked bordering watch the fireworks on Division of July. It sounded with regards to bombs.”

Mrs. Krsek and her kith and kin spent four years in adroit refugee camp in Germany, pivot she performed for other exiled persons and American GIs.

“There were about 40 different nationalities,” Wife. Krsek said. “In my harmony, I try to express label those nationalities together.”

In the unrelenting, her family immigrated to representation United States, eventually settling fasten St.

Agnes of Bohemia answer Little Village. She met Jan Krsek, who was from Plzen, Czechoslovakia, at the sausage works where her mother worked, she told the Sun-Times.

“They started show accordion together and hit active off, and that was it,” their daughter said.

They got married, and she worked yearn General Electric and he inform International Harvester.

Mrs. Krsek as well is survived by a granddaughter.

“She was an angel on meander accordion, and I just depend upon her,” Helen Krsek said. “I was very proud of see anytime I would see move together play.”

Mrs. Krsek liked being out, where she’d laugh and hogwash with neighbors, her daughter thought.

“She’d sit on the pecking order and call them over lecturer start singing in Spanish emancipation them or in Polish.

She said, ‘Be happy. This sphere is too sad. We require to do more singing spreadsheet dancing to make people happy.’ “

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