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It would appear that I have made my first appearance
on this planet on March 16th, 1941. At least that is what
the newspaper Telegraf wrote on that day when it printed
a photograph of my motion picture director father with
my aspiring actress mother and the brand new little me.
It happened on Sunday at 11 o'clock in the morning
Here I am, probably 1 year old having a morning snack al fresco.
My first "wheels" - summer 1943
This is our family country house on 133 Hasler street in Libcice about 30km north of Prague where
I have spent most of my baby years during the WWII. The street was named after my grandfather
Karel Hasler, actor, song writer and cabaretier who built this solitary house on the edge of a forest
in the early 1900. His wife's brother Rudolf Friml ( composer who's "Firefly" and "Rose-Marie" played
on the Broadway with a great success) stopped by every once in a while to take a rest from his frequent
travels around the world.
Karel Hasler was a man of courage and never refused to sing some of his satirical anti-German songs
in the local pubs. During one of such performances a Gestapo agent was present and in few days my
grandfather was arrested while filming on location in southern Bohemia. Without any trial he was sent
to a concentration camp in Mauthausen, Austria. Working in the camp's rock quarry he suffered an injury
and could not work anymore. Therefore on December 21, 1941 in the freezing alpine weather he was
tied naked to a chair under an outdoors ice cold shower and left to die a painful death. He was 64.
Karel Hasler - last portrait Brother Karel, our mother and I My father Zdenek "Gina" Hasler
My son Gino Jr. "The Stairs of Death"
Took him to Mauthausen in 1991 to see where Prisoners carried a boulder on their backs up
his great-grandfather died. This is the quarry with the steps, dropped it down back to the quarry,
the infamous "Stairs of Death"in the background. went to pick it up and carried it up again.Over
and over. Once they fell exhausted they were shot.
Gino Jr. in Prague-Zlichov visiting the house where his great-grandfather
Karel Hasler was born on October 31st, 1879.
( the spike holds a flower wreath on each anniversary of my grandfather's birth and death)
Time went by quickly. The war was over and here I am already in the 5th grade of elementary school.
This is how classrooms looked like those days. Note the huge heating stove in the back. Sitting next
to it was a real "sweater".
Those days my father was not with us anymore. During the war the Germans ordered him to move
to Kitzbuhel in Austria where he had to work for their film studios UFA. His position allowed him an
access to all sorts of German confidential war film material. These documentaries were also of great
interest to the OSS. My father was approached and agreed to smuggle requested material to the
underground from where it was passed further to the OSS. After the war ended he returned home but
in 1948 the new communist regime had him labeled as a western spy and issued a warrant for his
arrest. He had to flee to the West never to come back home again. I was 7 years old then and did not
see him again until 21 years later when in 1969 I emigrated to the USA and arrived to Santa Monica,
California where he lived. He died after a head injury shortly after that in 1972 at the age of 62.
My father working aboard a plane on Kwajalein (about 1967).
This old street in the suburban Prague is called "Novy Svet" ( New World). It was and still is
occupied by painters and sculptors. It was here where I have spent a lot of time in a studio of
one of my friends. By watching I was learning the"secrets"of painting. Gee, how many cold
winter evenings we spent there arguing about artists over a glass (many glasses)of boiled
cheap red wine with cloves and thought we were the Avant-garde.
Here are the sixties. We did all kind of things to push individualism. Handlebar mustaches,
beards started to appear, retro fashion. Some of us were arrested and interrogated for refusing
to conform to the communist ideology. Nothing serious though, just an attempt to scare us.
Studying at the Film School of the Academy of Music Arts, graphic art was still only a hobby
for me. Did a lot of still photography and started to focus on the bizarre shapes and textures
which I later applied to my paintings.
Loved to spend time in the country.
Those days I became really interested in fantasy and science-fiction. Read my first sci-fi book
which was Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" in Czech translation. The fact that much later
in 2002 Mr. Bradbury and I talked about a possibility of my illustrating his work would those
days seem like a crazy dream. Discovered the Beat Generation and rooted for Jack Kerouac.
Being a creative person I did not last long in an office working as a production assistant.
Wanted to be in front of the camera for a change. Did some screen tests and eventually made
it as a bit-role actor. Got married quite young and unfortunately my marriage did not last very long.
In a musical comedy for a New Year's eve television program 1964.
Working as an assistant director on a picture
in Zlin Studios, Moravia shortly before starting
a mandatory 2 years of military service.
(in the middle in white shirt and a goatee)
In the summer 1965 with a group of 4 friends, I have subjected myself to an experiment dealing
with sleep deprivation. Handsome pay was offered and that did the trick. And so we gathered
in a military hospital in Prague and beginning on Monday 8:00AM, we stayed awake till Saturday
11:00AM being constantly watched and tested with regard to our deteriorating physical as well
as mental status. On Saturday at 11:00AM the experiment was stopped as we were getting really crazy.
So off to beds we went and slept the whole day and night till Sunday morning. On July 11th in the
middle of this craziness I received a telephone call informing me that on the other side of Prague
my daughter Lucie was born.
There was a documentary shot during this event and in 1994 while in Prague I got together with
my friends again for the shooting of a TV short "Non sleepers 30 years later."
In the Czech TV studio on Kavci Hory in Prague after the shoot in 1994.
Participants left to right: Jiri Stivin (in a hat)world renown flutist, Jiri Vanysek, Petr Knob next
to my daugther Lucie ( she works at the Czech Television as a production assistant and also
also appeared in the film), myself, painter Mikulas Lubomirsky held by Milan Pesek,director.
Milan Pesek passed on in his sleep in late spring 2002.
*
After leaving Czechoslovakia I spent a year in Frankfurt,Germany working for the Hessian TV
and Radio station as a television newsreel cameraman. After arriving to the US I had to start
all over again. From work in camera store, warehouse of Cinema Beaulieu and few month in
New York as a sales rep I got a position of a research assistant with Cedars of Lebanon hospital
in Los Angeles under the pioneer and leading expert on endoscopy Dr. George Berci.
My job was evaluation of various prototypes of endoscopes with respect to their light transmission
crucial for their use in endoscopic cinematography. My presence in the operating theatre became
an almost daily routine and observing innovative surgical procedures helped me in my later career
as a medical illustrator.
*
Susan and I on vacation Hawaii 1970 Clowning around for Susan Hawaii 1970
Susan with our friend movie director Jiri Weiss on Hollywood Boulevard - 1973
To augment my income I also freelanced as an industrial film cameraman mostly for Lockheed
Corporation. Looking back I put in quite a few flying hours filming and experienced excitement
when I was let (very briefly)behind the controls of a Hercules C130 on the flight back from a shoot
or taking a "ride"in a SR71 Blackbird trainer, filming various gauges performing "in flight".
On Lockheed's runway in Mojave Desert.
It was in Lockheed where I met movie director Steve Hull and was proposed to direct photography
on a feature film for television "Night Rider" later renamed to "Ten Speed". We made it on spec
and lost our shirts. It aired on ON TV couple of times.
Later I started my own business GH Productions and focused on illustrating medical and nature
subjects. All of my former film clients became unionized and I could not be hired anymore as a
nonunion cameraman. I decided to hang it up and went full time as a graphic artist.
*
On July 5th, 1975 I married Susan ( picked the date as it is easy to remember) and on May 28,1976
our son Gino Jr. was born. I cried with happiness and was "accused" by a maternity ward nurse of
not being an American since I let my emotions openly take the better of me. So what, that is the
way I am.
On two occasions I was invited by Prof. Dr. Heinz Stammberger to Graz in Austria to prepare number
of illustrations for his milestone book "Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery". It was a great honor
for me to get to know not only one of the leading experts in this field but also a very nice man.
Graz is a beautiful city and I hope that one day I shall visit there again.
Hotel Erzherzog Johann in Graz
Drawing I made of this cozy little mansard where I stayed Dining there was a real experience.
and worked on the illustrations.
Visiting with friends back home
Visiting with my very dear friend movie director Zdenek Sirovy With painter Mikulas Lubomirsky, my best friend since
at his summer house in southern Bohemia in 1993. early childhood. From this man I learned most of what
I know about painting
My friends visiting with me
Movie director Dusan Hanak stopped by after screening of his film "Pictures of the old world" in Los Angeles.
Movie director Zdenek Sirovy relaxes after a hot day Susan, Zdenek and I talking about old times.
spent in Disneyland.
*
We traveled quite a bit and after Gino Jr. grew up to the point where he could enjoy and keep
memories of foreign countries and places we did all the traveling and everything else for that
matter as an unseparable trio. Until recently that is, when he moved in to his own place to start
his own life. He is a talented artist and works hard on making it his career.
Update:
Gino made us both very proud when he informed us about his acceptance to the prestigious
Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he started his studies in September 2000.
His goal is to work as a computer animator for motion picture industry.
Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California
Susan and Gino Jr. on Montmartre 1988 ( He loved French and decided to learn it.
Today he writes and speaks it fluently.)
*
My everyday routine starts at 5:00AM. I have breakfast consisting of about 3 cups of coffee,
newspaper and few cigarettes. Feeding the animals comes next, Oliver the shepherd, our
Himalayan cat Kokoshka, fishes in the outdoors little pond, flock of Gouldian Finches in the
aviary, peanuts for the squirrels and jays and finish with the cockatiel that one day flew in from
the outside and stayed. He lives cageless in the kitchen. Zhivago the green parrot is taken
care of by Susan, the only person he tolerates.
I can only work with daylight and so as soon as the sun is up I sit down and start drawing
or painting. I usually quit for the day when Susan arrives from work. It's just that I like to work
being completely alone. This probably started already in my childhood when I liked to crawl
into some nook and piddled with bits and pieces of wood building my own toys to my own
imagination. Funny, over the nice and expensive ones I would get I liked those I made myself
the best.
The day would come to it's closure ideally with a pork roast, dumplings and sauerkraut dinner
followed by some good show on the BBC channel. Comes 9 o'clock and I am off to bed.
My son showed me not long ago his quite interesting approach to self-portrait.I liked the idea.
At first it did not look anything like a self-portrait but as he walked to a distance it all came together.
My son's study with his sketches.
That is about all except for the fact that my thrill loving nature took me not long ago to Mexico
where I enjoyed a new experience of para-sailing and to push the envelope still a bit further
started to bungee jump which in itself is a very thrilling happening.
Puerto Vallarta Mexico 1996 Mismaloya Mexico 1996
Thank you for visiting with me and let me tell you, it is good to be alive on this Earth.
I left out my UFO experience but may be I shall add it later.
Bit of thrill, good dose of humor and loving family, that's the ticket.
And if you ever feel like doing something crazy, for God's sake, do it!
Still clowning around...
