Trivia

Began singing in high school. After the conservatory, he graduated from the Faculty of Theatre, where his teachers briefly included Oldrich Nový.

Zíma began his singing career in swing, later becoming a pop music star and one of the first in Czechoslovakia to devote himself to rock and roll. However, from the 1970s onwards, he focused more on brass bands and folk songs, for which he won three gold and one platinum record.

In 2008, Josef Zíma received the Frantisek Filipovský Award for lifetime mastery in dubbing, and seven years later he received the Thalia in the operetta and musical category. He received the Medal for Merit to the State in the Field of Arts from President Milos Zeman.

In 1959, he caused a traffic accident. The singer and chansonnier Judita Cerovská, Alena Pánková, himself and the director Jirí Jungwirth. Director Jungwith later died in hospital.

In 2018, he performed at the Semily festival, where he sang outdoors for over two hours.

In January 2021, he got vaccinated in front of television cameras to promote the Covid-19 vaccination.

In addition to pop music, he was known as a Czech brass band singer. He was often referred to as the uncrowned king of Czech brass band.

After graduating from high school in Prague - Michli, he studied acting at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) (graduated in 1953), and at the same time he also took private singing lessons.

He was also one of the godfathers of the Czech Radio station Pohoda .

In his life, he recorded about 200 songs and won three gold and one platinum records.

From 1962 to 1992, a full 30 years, he was engaged in the Prague Chamber Theatre, belonging to the group of Prague Municipal Theatres . Here he was not only an actor , but also a good singer.

Josef Zíma was a singer with a not very sonorous voice in the tenor range, however, it was a very pleasant, cultivated, well-groomed voice and capable of expressing many different moods and emotions.

Josef Zíma was a Czech actor , singer and presenter.

In the summer of 2019, he was one of 130 guests at a giant celebration of singer Karel Gott's eightieth birthday .

In the late 1960s, his space in popular music began to be limited. He therefore took advantage of the offer of the Supraphon label and began to profile himself as a singer of Czech brass bands (the genre of so-called Czech folk music).