Nowicki, Jan

(1939-)

   Popular film and theater actor, affiliated since 1965 with Krakow's Old Theater (Teatr Stary), voted by the Film readers to be the best Polish film actor for 1983. Following his graduation from the Kraków State Acting School (PWST) in 1964, Nowicki appeared in Andrzej Wajda's historical epic Ashes (1965) and starred in Jerzy Skolimowski's The Barrier (1966). His reputation was growing at the beginning of the 1970s thanks to leading roles in Andrzej Kondratiuk's The Hole in the Ground (1970) and Scorpio, Virgo, andSagitarius (1973), Krzysztof Zanussi's Family Life (1971), and Wojciech Has's Hospital under the Hourglass (1973). His leading role in a Polish love story, Anatomy of Love (Anatomia miłości, 1972), directed by Roman Załuski, was popular among audiences.

   In 1976 Nowicki started to appear in a number of Hungarian films, several of them directed by his wife, internationally known director Marta Meszaros. These include Nine Months (1976), Diary for My Children (1987), and The Unburied Man (2004), among others. In Poland, he excelled playing a terminally ill man in Zanussi's Spiral (1978) and appeared in strong supporting roles in films directed by Edward Żebrowski (In Broad Daylight, 1980), Piotr Szulkin (Golem, 1979), and Wojciech Marczewski (Nightmares, 1979). In the 1980s, Nowicki maintained his popularity in Poland with films such as Sylwester Chęciński's crime drama The Big Rook (1983) and starring as Prince Hans Heinrich XV von Teuss in Filip Bajon's historical epic The Magnate (1987). After 1989 Nowicki continued his work in Hungarian film and more often appeared in Polish entertainment films such as Jarosław Zamojda's Young Wolves (Młode wilki, 1995) and Olaf Lubaszenko's The Sting (1997).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof