Mato Ergović
Mato Ergović was a Croatian stage, television and film actor, remembered as a striking character actor and comedian. Sturdy in build and with a rural manner, he played a great many roles, mostly supporting ones, in film, on television and on stage, and spent most of his career at Zagreb's Gavella Drama Theatre. He was born on 11 January 1927 in Novi Mikanovci, near Vinkovci. He began acting at the city theatre in Vinkovci. After finishing secondary school and a teacher-training course he worked for several years as a teacher in various parts of Croatia, then enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, studying under Branko Gavella, and graduated in acting in 1954. He joined the Zagreb Drama Theatre, today's Gavella, where he stayed until 1985, when he moved to the Marin Držić Theatre in Dubrovnik, working there until he retired in 1992. At the Gavella he acted from the theatre's very first productions, Gavella's legendary stagings of Krleža's U logoru and Golgota, followed by Of Mice and Men, Blood Wedding, The Crucible, Don Juan and many more. In more than four decades he played nearly 70 roles, among them Tripče in Držić's Dundo Maroje, Harry Hope in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, the Bishop in Marinković's Glorija in 1970, Clotaldo in Life Is a Dream, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night and Caliban in The Tempest. He also appeared in Fabijan Šovagović's Sokol ga nije volio, which ran for 224 performances, and his last role was Don Florijo in Glorija in 1995. He performed at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, and among his many awards was the City of Zagreb Award in 1970. On television he left his mark in many popular series, as Domenico in Naše malo misto, in Velo misto, as the Canon in U registraturi and as the priest in Mačak pod šljemom, with further roles in Čovik i po, Nikola Tesla, Nepokoreni grad and Putovanje u Vučjak. He made some sixty films, including Svoga tela gospodar, Družba Pere Kvržice, U gori raste zelen bor, Predstava Hamleta u Mrduši Donjoj, Povratak, Sokol ga nije volio, Maršal, Tu and Duga mračna noć. Mato Ergović died in Zagreb on 7 May 2013.
