Petre Prlicko is one of the greatest actors in the history of Macedonian art, film and theater. He was born 13 March 1907, in Veles as Perica Aleksic. He was born in a poor, working class family, so he didn’t have a chance to get a good education.
His love for theater sprang in 1923 from the traveling group of Mihailo Kazik. In that time traveling theaters were very popular and a big attraction for the people living in small towns. This traveling theater arrived in Veles and seeing them preform on stage kindled a passion for acting in his heart. He was fascinated with them, and therefore he continued with the group where he learned a lot about acting and life on stage. While he was with them he got the nickname Petre Prlicko. After some time he founded his own theater group called “Boem.”
In 1939 he became a member of the National Theater of Macedonia, where he got main roles in plays and became popular very fast. His talent made him favorite among the audience, which made the ticket offices sell out their tickets immediately. One of his most memorable roles was the role as Jevrem Prokic in ” Revisor.” Nobody has ever played that role better than him in the history of that play.
His debut on the movie screen happened in 1949 in the Serbo-Croatian movie “Majka Katina” (Mother Katina). After that, in 1952, he took part of the movie “Frosina,” the very first film in Macedonian. He had a big role in the movies “Volcja nok” (A Wolf Night) and “Miss Stone” and formed part of 65 other movies in total. His biography also reveals 50 other roles of his in traveling theaters, 80 roles in plays and 2 roles in operas.
For the movie “Miss Stone” ( 1958), he won The Golden Arena Award of Yugoslavia. ” Miss Stone ” is one of Macedonia’s most popular movies. It is about young girl, Ellen Maria Stone a protestant missionary in Macedonia, and her kidnapping from Macedonian revolutionists. The purpose of the kidnapping was that Macedonian fighters will get world wide attention and money for the Macedonian cause, being under the slavery of Ottoman Turks. In the movie, Petre plays the role of Mandana. There is one part of the scene, where he needs to bless a new born baby that makes him remembered. His performance made the blessing and the lines from the movie is still quoted 50 years later.
He also won countless awards for best actor in Macedonia and all over Europe.
Petre Prlicko died in Skopje on 16th November 1995.
By dedicating his entire life to art, he accomplished a lot for both Macedonian and European theater. With his flawless performance he changed the norms of how a theater actor should appear on stage. In his honor, the National Theater of Veles “Jordan Hadzi Konstantinov- Dzinot” presents actors with an award for life achievement called “Petre Pricko.”
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