Who was called the “Red Prince”? Who was the serial hero of all time? Who was considered the most famous erotomaniac of the People’s Republic of Poland? In the times of the ubiquitous dullness of the People’s Republic of Poland, celebrities, loved by crowds and pampered by the authorities, appeared to the average citizen like birds of paradise, real kings of life. About these celebrities circulated various, often bloated to the point of absurdity, and even harmful rumors, which many of them have experienced firsthand.
Iwona Kienzler tells a story about politicians, artists, journalists and sportsmen, both those who are widely adored and those who are hated because of their party affiliation, or who are accused of selling themselves out to the system. Cyrankiewicz, Sokorski, Łomnicki, Mikulski, Jaroszewicz, Ciszewski, Komar, Głowacki – in the latest book Królowie życia PRL we see them from a completely different, unknown side than before.
Iwona Kienzler “The Kings of the People’s Republic of Poland”, Lira Publishing House – excerpt:
Although Łomnicki could hardly be considered an ideal of male beauty, he never complained about the lack of success in the fair sex. As many as five times he stood on the carpet, moreover, he used to say about himself that “he was probably born married”, he divorced four times and … he did not avoid extramarital adventures. In Krakow, while still a young boy, he met Halina Mikołajska, but she, probably as one of the few, was resistant to Tadeusz’s charm: extremely often she did not come to the previously arranged dates, explaining to the admirer that she had simply forgotten about the planned meeting. Meanwhile, he waited for her on the bench for hours …
The first wife of the actor was Halina – his first, adolescent love. The couple got married fairly quickly and had a son, Jacek, who later became a cinematographer. According to some biographers, it was Halina who persuaded Tadeusz to join the party, which his last wife, Maria Bojarska, doubts. The actor became a parent at an exceptionally young age, because when his son was born, Łomnicki was only twenty-four years old and he probably was not ready for the role of a father, and he was also unable to cope with the role of a husband.
His wife, on the other hand, did not understand his perfectionism or love for the theater. She was young, she wanted to play and “visit”, while the partner spent hours preparing for the next role.
Discouraged, she finally found a lover whom Tadeusz knew. When Jacek was only two years old, the actor went to Warsaw to shoot “Five from Barska Street”. The spouses then parted for good and the couple divorced.
Another woman who charmed Łomnicki was Irena, the daughter of a mixed marriage of a Polish woman and a Russian, united by political views (both were communists). Irena’s father died during the Stalinist purges, and she ended up in one of the Soviet orphanages near Saratov; there, in 1951, her mother found her and took her to Poland. They met the actor in 1953 on the set of Generation, a film shot in Łódź; Irena worked as an apprentice in sound production. Łomnicki accosted her for the first time on the steps of the Grand Hotel in Łódź and invited her to dinner together with Tadeusz Janczar, but the girl refused. As soon as she turned to leave, she heard Łomnicki’s words behind her back: “I will marry you anyway!”. He really got his way, because a year later Irena became his wife; everyone envied him, because the other Mrs. Łomnicka, small and red-haired, was a very pretty woman.
The couple moved to Nowy Świat, and because Irena still spoke Polish poorly, Łomnicki played the role of a teacher. “Tadeusz taught me the language, Polish history and poetry,” she admitted years later. The problem, however, was that the role of mentor and teacher entered his blood, and with time he tried to dominate his spouse, subordinate her to his career. It got to the point that Irena was awake all night and she was late for work.
“He was ten times too much for me,” she said about her marriage. “He kept inquiring about something, I couldn’t bear the tension. He was tearing me out of my world. I always lived ‘inward’.” Apparently, almost from the beginning of their life together, they thought about a divorce, which finally took place in 1960. The trial itself turned out to be a difficult experience for Irena, as the judge asked for details of the rift between them. “At a wedding, it was enough to say ‘yes’, why is it not enough now to say ‘no’?” The irritated woman replied and added: “I wanted a two-door wardrobe, he wanted a three-door wardrobe; I wanted mugs, and he wanted glasses …”.
The actor enjoyed regained freedom for less than a year; He spent the summer of 1961 with the next woman of his life, Teresa Sobańska, an assistant to the children’s radio theater. Apparently, she captivated him not only with her beauty and grace, but also with an aristocratic surname and family connections with Erwin Axer. Sobańska, on the other hand, was infatuated with the actor’s charisma and the attention with which he treated her. After the wedding, however, the situation changed, and Łomnicki, just like in the previous relationship, assumed the image of a mentor and teacher. Meanwhile, his wife quit her professional career just to be with him, answer phone calls, make appointments, and cook lean meat with lettuce. At night, when the excess of impressions deprived the actor of sleep, she walked with him for hours on the deserted streets of Warsaw. Years later, she admitted that the period preceding each premiere was a real hell for her, as was Tadeusz’s constant striving for perfection. When she overslept for the sociology exam, he gave her a tavern brawl and took offense so much that they didn’t talk to each other for another two weeks. No wonder, because he was preparing himself for this exam with her: he read a lot of books on this subject, and when he had acquired his knowledge, he questioned his wife like a professor. Ultimately, Teresa got into philosophy only to please Tadeusz. “You had to show admiration, otherwise he closed in on himself, he was furious, slammed the door,” Sobańska confessed years later. “. She admitted: “I was really happy to see him in Leningrad in 1963, when Arthur Ui played there. Russian artists worshiped him. There was a continuous banquet in his honor for two weeks. Everyone wanted to host him at home. And he was finally cheerful and cheerful. relaxed”. He was able to shower his wife with expensive gifts, only to make her a row about too high, in his opinion, home bills. And he loved to demonstrate power: when they quarreled during a car trip to a Marlena Dietrich concert, just before reaching the venue for such a demonstration, he decided not to attend this long-awaited performance. Everyday life with Łomnicki, who was furiously jealous of his hands, resembled an emotional rollercoaster: “It was like an idyll, and at the same time everything hung in a thread – recalled his third wife. he was cheating on me. What was he like? […] Can you describe a rainbow or a fire? Charming. Elusive. The monster … and I loved him. “However, when Łomnicki had a crush on Zawadzka, the cup of bitterness overflowed and Teresa decided to divorce.
As you know, the young actress abandoned him for Holoubek. Łomnicki looked for consolation in the arms of his fourth wife, with whom he even had a son, Piotr, today a renowned graphic artist; however, the birth of a child did not cement the relationship. The couple broke up in 1974, and at the spouse’s divorce hearing, explaining the reason for their separation, said that she married an actor, not a party activist – it was the time of the artist’s lively activity in the party ranks.
Łomnicki did not despair too much after the break-up, not only because his fourth marriage turned out to be a tragic mistake – he was already then interested in another woman. In the same 1974, another woman appeared in his life, twenty-six years younger than him, Maria Bojarska, a musician and theater specialist by profession. The third wife once said that Łomnicki usually fell in love with “young women, because he wanted to absolutely dominate”; however, he was attracted to Bojarska not only by her youth and beauty, but also by her personality. Maria was probably the only one of his wives who understood the torments he was going through while preparing for the play, and she was an artist herself – she played the harpsichord, and as a theater scientist she was connected with the world of theater. This time, however, Łomnicki did not make a mistake from the past: he did not marry another partner after ten years of living together, so his decision about the fifth marriage should be considered deeply considered. Maria also knew what to write: “I consciously became the wife of an artist who was preoccupied with himself, with his work, who did not want a baby, he did not want my friends, he only needed me. Theater was his way of life, life was a theater for him and he played all the time “- she confessed in one of the interviews; at the same time she described her relationship as “sacramental, not sacramental”. And although she subordinated her own life to her husband’s career, she did not allow herself to be completely dominated. She worked as a theater scientist, theater critic and writer, and when she wanted to rest, she went on vacation alone; It also happened that the couple spent separate Christmas or New Year’s Eve, which did not have a negative impact on their relationship. She never referred to Tadeusz as “my husband”, but “my ex-fiancé”, and she did not allow herself to be herded into the kitchen. Many visitors to their house were outraged at the sight of the great actor cooking dinners or frying scrambled eggs, although many men relax mentally in the kitchen. To the astonished guests, Maria announced without hesitation that there was a fixed division in their house: her husband was taking care of the table and she was taking care of the bed.
After all, the relationship with the actor was not easy, especially when the premiere was approaching; Bojarska confessed that before each premiere performance, she seriously considered filing for a divorce, and at the same time admitted: “I understood deep down his tension, nervousness, irritation. It would be cabotage if he hid his problems and feelings and did not share them with me”. With time, she realized that by marrying Łomnicki, she had become “a life prisoner of the theater, with no prospect of pardon.” She also admitted that his personality was so strong that she felt as if she lived with ten artists. Although she was two decades younger than her husband, she also faced jealousy over other women; she suspected Tadeusz, for example, of having an affair with her own sister, Anna, whom her husband “admired too enthusiastically”.
Bonding with the man with the past, Bojarska had to come to terms with the presence of his children. The older of Łomnicki’s sons, only two years her senior, was already an adult and had a life of his own; but the younger, teenage boy, he didn’t really like her, at least that’s what the account in the book shows, and he didn’t really accept the fact of her existence. When Maria became pregnant with Tadeusz, the actor strongly demanded an abortion; although she resisted, she ultimately succumbed to his will. Despite various storms and turbulences, it was with Bojarska Łomnicki who created the longest and most stable relationship in his life – a relationship that lasted until the actor’s death.
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
