Leonard Pietraszak passed away – Nowy Dziennik
The outstanding actor Leonard Pietraszak died at the age of 87. In the years 1959-2012 he played in theaters in Łódź, Poznań and Warsaw. He has acted in over 30 films. Millions of TV viewers remembered his creations in m.in. in the TV series “Black Clouds” or Karol Stelmach in the TV series “Czterdziestolatek”.
Actor Leonard Pietraszak died at the age of 87. The information was confirmed by PAP, the president of ZASP, Krzysztof Szuster.
Leonard Pietraszak was born on November 6, 1936 in Bydgoszcz in the family of a Wielkopolska insurgent and a soldier of the Border Protection Corps.
On February 27, 1959, he made his debut as Alguasil in Tirso de Molina’s “Green Bullfinch”, directed by Czesław Staszewski and Ireneusz Kanicki at the Powszechny Theater in Łódź. In 1960, he graduated from the Acting Department of the PWSTiF in Łódź. In the years 1960-1962 he was an actor of the Dramatic Theaters in Poznań, and from 1962 to 1965 an actor of the Polish Theater in Poznań. He performed in Warsaw theaters: in the years 1965-1971 at the Classical Theatre, from the 1971-1976 season at the Comedy Theatre, in the years 1977-2008 at the Ateneum Theater Stefan Jaracz.
He played many outstanding roles in plays, including: “Detective” directed by Janusz Warmiński or “Police” staged by Jan Świderski.
The last time he appeared in the theater was on May 12, 2012 in the role of Stanford P. Sutton in the play “Pocztówki z Europa” directed by Krystyna Janda at the OCH-Teatr in Warsaw.
He played in films by Tadeusz Chmielewski, Jerzy Gruza, Andrzej Konic, Kazimierz Kutz, Juliusz Machulski, Janusz Majewski, Maria Sadowska, Andrzej Wajda and Wojciech Wójcik. He appeared in 30 films and film series, including in “How I Unleashed World War II”, “Pearl in the Crown”, “Połaniecki Family”, “Queen Bona”, “Bermuda Triangle”, “Gold of Deserters”. Juliusz Machulski’s comedies “Vabank” (1982) and “Vabank II, or riposte” (1985) brought him great popularity.
Millions of TV viewers remembered his serial creations, including Colonel Krzysztof Dowgird in the series “Black Clouds” and Karol Stelmach in the series “Czterdziestolatek”.
On February 15, 2015, Leonard Pietraszak was awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Merit to Culture. He also received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
“In the acting profession, a loophole called mystery is very important. That someone is built so internally that when they enter the stage, they speak, but I can see that this is not what they want to say. That it hides a secret” – he told PAP in an interview in 2015.
“Although I was carried away by the big world, I did not stop being a citizen of Bydgoszcz,” he said about himself. The actor emphasized strong ties with the city. In 2012, he unveiled his autograph in Bydgoszcz’s “Aleja Gwiazd”, and in 2018 – he received the title of honorary citizen of the city.
In 2021, Pietraszak and his wife Wanda donated the Leon Wyczółkowski in Bydgoszcz, a collection of Young Poland paintings consisting of several dozen paintings. The works are presented at the newly opened permanent exhibition “Jan Stanisławski and his times”. The collection donated to the museum consists of five paintings by Jan Stanisławski and 52 of his students, presented in a spacious hall of the historic building of the museum, whose revitalization, reconstruction and expansion was completed this year.
author: Maciej Replewicz, Jerzy Rausz, Daria Porycka
