Mani

Dino

About the exciting life of a great theater actress!

Energetic, eccentric, full of life... That's how relatives described Mani, born Julija Birimuša. Her mother, the famous actress Danira, practically nursed her in the Split National Theater, so it can be said that Mani was born into the theater. She was a theater critic from an early age - she constantly commented on her mother. But her father, a successful lawyer Zdravka, saw a different picture of his daughter's success. He wanted her to inherit his law firm. Stubborn Mani, she really wanted to become an actress. But her decision to choose a profession, like many other decisions throughout her life, was guided by love. Having fallen in love with a young man who enrolled in literature, she also decided to go to Zagreb and study comparative studies at the Faculty of Philosophy.

Shortly after finishing her studies, she met the composer Peru Gotovac. Two artistic souls connected. At that time, she started writing theater reviews for Studentski list and Polet. She started publishing her criticisms in Telegram and Croatian Weekly. Her life was later disturbed by two accidents. The first was the ban on writing and publishing from 1972 to 1980 due to her participation in the Croatian Spring, and the second was the death of her six-year-old daughter Ana, for whom she mourned inconsolably for the rest of her life.

Divorce from Pera and marriage to Željko Senečić, a painter and scenographer, soon followed. Together they moved into an attic apartment in Medulićeva, which became a small center of intellectual life in Zagreb. According to her daughter, even Kirk Douglas and Bo Derek visited it. There, on a black wooden platform that also served as a home stage, is her writing corner. She typed reviews late into the night, and for writing she always used a black Continental typewriter that also belonged to her mother.
 
After successfully managing &ITD and the theater of Marin Držić, she was chosen as the director of the Croatian National Theater in Split. She was the first woman at the head of a Croatian theater. Until the end of her life, she remembered the eve during which she was told this important news. She was excited, but also nervous. She stood for a long time and stared into space. She thought - what will she do now? She knew that she wanted to make the theater interesting for the audience, but she was ashamed to become the first woman in Croatia to head a theater. She knew that a lot of media criticism of her decisions would come from the mere fact that she is a woman. Her slogan was "Theatre in the city, the city to the theater".

After the successful management of Split, he was also engaged in Rijeka's Zajac. She left it with great media fanfare, after choosing Severina for the role of Baroness Castelli in Krleža's well-known drama Gospoda Glembajevi. She never regretted her decision.

She has devoted the last ten years to writing and publishing, mostly romance novels that the audience enjoyed reading. She had to leave her beloved apartment on the third floor in Medulićeva due to her mobility difficulties. Having moved to a nursing home, she watched the autumn leaves through the window. She believed that even the autumn of a man's life has its own beauties. An artistic soul, she kept both joy and sadness with her. The joy of incredible artistic achievements and the love that was the main motive of her novels, but also of her life. "You can't do it without love!", she said.

She was not lonely. Until her last day, she was surrounded by many friends and family. But she always carried the past with her. The memory of my daughter Ana, who passed away prematurely, of my great loves Peru and Seneca, and of the difficult struggle for validation on the closed and small Croatian scene. For her, creating art has always been about discovering something unknown. A way of finding meaning in a multitude of contradictions and nonsense. She said - if I had become a lawyer, maybe I would have been calm and rich. She was none of those things. But she never lost her curiosity, search, desire and longing. And that's why everyone knows who Mani Gotovac was.

Life is always a premiere

The story about a girl who was very determined to host a radio show. In spite of one unlucky letter.

Mani Gotovac, the eccentric diva of the Croatian theater, the first Croatian female intendant and a famous writer, had one flaw. She could not pronounce the letter "r" since she was a child.

At the beginning of her career, back in the sixties, Mani got a job at Radio Zagreb. She wrote theater reviews. The writers themselves usually read the reviews during the show's running. They did it for an extra fee. But not Mani. Poor Mani, for the life of her, could not  pronounce the letter "r". This is why radio show producers refused to allow Mani to read her reviews on her own.

What they didn't know was, that Mani would eventually find a way to do what she wanted. In spite of everyone, she took a plastic tape and taped the letter "r" on her typewriter – a black Continental inherited from her mother.

Every time she touched that damned letter to write it, Mani stopped herself. She then tried to think of another word that didn't contain the letter she hated. During her career on the radio, Mani managed to write dozens of reviews, none of which contained a single word with the letter "r"! Producers, witnessing her determination, therefore had to allow her to read her reviews. And this is the story how Mani, thanks to her persistency, successfully established herself as a theater critic on that very same radio.

You Can Do Without Letters

Who was the first editor of the famous Mani?

The famous Croatian writer Igor Mandić and the equally famous theater critic and director Mani Gotovac have known each other since their school days. Both attended the classical high school in Split. Mandić said that, from the first exchanged sentences, they recognized each other as soul mates.

Together, they published the school newspaper, which, as Mandić describes, they "pretentiously" named "Oči". It was issued on a schapirograph, then the only device available for issuing sheets. They wrote articles for new issues late into the night. Mani wrote several articles for that paper, and Mandić had the honor of being "the first real editor" who published her works. They remained inseparable friends for the rest of their lives.

About the first editor

The iron lady of the theater - why did Mani want Severina to play Baroness Castelli in the Glembays?

Mani Gotovac was an eccentric and creative theater expert, dramatist and director of several theaters. During his directorship at the Rijeka theater "Ivana pl. Zajca" was responsible for the outbreak of one of the biggest theater scandals. Namely, Mani assigned the role of the fatal Baroness Castelli in Glebayjevi to Severina. This decision stunned theater critics and the public. Various news stories were written about how the theater is collapsing, how it is becoming populist, how they only want to sell tickets at the expense of quality...

But persistent Mani never regretted her decision. Later, she explained why she decided to hire a pop artist for a role in one of the most important Croatian drama pieces. Namely, she just borrowed someone else's theatrical idea.

At that time, the Lithuanian Eiumentas Nekrocius was declared the European director of the century after directing "Hamlet". This famous director assigned the leading role in the play to the then most famous Lithuanian rock singer. That idea delighted me. She wanted to push the boundaries and connect high art and variety shows. She agreed with the director that the play would be a musical, and since Severina was at the top of the Croatian music charts at the time, she suggested her as the actress to Castelli. Later, convinced of her acting talent, she hired her for the role of Karolina Rijeka, the historical woman who saved Rijeka from the English destruction.

Due to the unprecedented interest in Krleža's piece, the play saw as many as three premieres. And so Mani left Rijeka HNK with a bang, which she represented for four full years.

O Castelli barons

A parting arranged without our will also promises a meeting, right?

Mani Gotovac, a successful theater critic, playwright and director, had a turbulent love life. She always kept the last name of her first husband, Pere Gotovac. When asked why, she replied that she wanted her daughter to have the same last name. She broke up shortly after she started an intense love affair with Željko Senečić, a painter and scenographer.

She described their love in the book in the somewhat autobiographical novel "Partings". They argued and reconciled, but they also loved each other, in an unusual way. They both left their families and marriages and moved into an attic apartment in Medulićeva. That apartment became a small center of intellectual life in Zagreb. According to her daughter, even Kirk Douglas and Bo Derek visited it. There, on a black wooden platform that also served as a home stage, is her writing corner. She typed reviews late into the night, and for writing she always used a black Continental typewriter that also belonged to her mother. She lived in the apartment until the moment when she could no longer climb the steep stairs to the third floor. And then she left him reluctantly.

To Seneca, as she called him, she too was bound by a lifelong love which, due to disagreements in life, turned from marital to friendly. She always kept the picture he gave her during their first year together. An unusual clown was painted on the picture - a frequent motif in Senečić's work.

This artist said goodbye to her in a similar way. Two days before his death, Seneca brought an abstract painting to her room in the nursing home as a gift. He told her that she would see a lot of their life together in that picture. Mani carefully preserved it. Their life, as he writes in his book, was marked by partings and meetings. And Yesenin would write about partings: "A parting arranged without our will also promises a meeting, right?".

Do you have any stories about this person?

Read more stories

Life is always a premiere

You Can Do Without Letters

About the first editor

O Castelli barons

Love through pictures