Honored with the title of Theater Artist, Kossuth and Jászai Mari prize-winning actor, worthy artist, he was a permanent member of the National Theater of Szeged. He is the first actor who was chosen among the Actors of the Nation, having spent his entire career in the countryside. Levente Király was 87 years old.
"It is with deep shock that we inform you that Levente Király, Actor of the Nation, Kossuth Prize winner, Distinguished Artist, Hereditary Member of the National Theater of Szeged, Honorary Citizen of the City of Szeged, passed away this morning"
- announced the Szeged National Theater on its social media page.
Levente Király was born in Budapest on March 6, 1937 to Antal Kőnig and Terézia Hangyál, but lived his life in Szeged. His son, Attila Király, also chose the artistic career, becoming an actor, director, and choreographer.
In 1955, he was admitted to the College of Theater and Film after his experience in high school student theater.
"According to him, he didn't study acting himself, he accompanied a friend to the admission, but Levente Király eventually became a student of Miklós Szinetár's first acting class"
Noémi Kecskés writes about him in her study .
Disciplinary hearing
In addition to Szinetár, Levente Király was also greatly influenced by another teacher, Endre Gellért. He was also the one who stood up for the student at Király's disciplinary hearing: according to the rule made in the 1950s, after graduating from college, students had to work in rural theaters for two years. Király did not know about this rule, and during an informal conversation, he said yes to Ferenc Ladányi, who wanted to sign him to the Madách Theater company. Endre Gellért suggested that they not impose a penalty, but rather wait for the directors of the rural theaters, let them decide who wants to sign the young actor - finally István Komor, the chief director of the Szeged National Theater, invited him.
István Komor, the head director of the Szeged National Theater at the time, asked me if I would come to Szeged, and I didn't have much choice, I came. But it was as if a knife had been twisted in my heart. I got off the train, where I was greeted by that horrible square. I thought God had abandoned me. But at least the theater was nice, I thought something was about to happen. I went into the office and asked the art secretary where I was going to live. "Dear Levente, wherever you can. He takes out a sublet or goes to a hotel, I don't know,' he answered. Thanks to this, I lived in the Hungária Hotel for half a year, which I then paid back for two years
- he told Magyar Narancs in 2006. Until the end of his life, he remained loyal to the company and his city, where he had been playing since 1959. In 2007, he became an honorary citizen of Szeged.
Critics regularly highlighted his multi-colored, renewable, and bravura performances. An important stop in his career was the performance entitled The King of London, or Kean, the Actor, in which he shaped the character of Edmund Kean, playing several well-known dramatic roles, through each of them the main question of the play, stretching the boundary between a private person and an actor.
Although he graduated as a prose actor, he soon joined musical performances (The Gypsy Baron, The Count of Luxemburg, First Lieutenant Mária, Irma, te édes, János vitéz, Csárdásralyő) with great success. Among his musical roles, Tevje stands out, the lead role in the performance Fiddler on the Roof, with which he followed in the footsteps of great predecessors such as Chaim Topol, who played Tevje in the world-famous film, or Ferenc Bessenyei in Budapest, at the Budapest Operetta Theater.
Work with Sándor Zsótér
Levente Király has been a member of the company of the Szeged National Theater for almost four decades, when in 1997 he collaborated for the first time with Sándor Zsótér in the performance A sasfiók. This was followed by The Death of the Agent, in which he already played the main role, thereby starting their multi-year collaboration. Later, Sándor Zsótér based several of his performances in Szeged on the stage presence of Levente Király, thus directing him in Falstaff, The Life of Galileo and King Lear, giving him the title role each time. According to Zsótér's characterization
Levente Király is one of those rare artists whose high level of craftsmanship is combined with the joy of work.
He said this himself:
"I was also lucky with the young people, especially Sándor Zsótér, to whom I can thank for such great roles as Willy Loman, Falstaff, Galileo or King Lear. Acting requires a lot of luck - it doesn't hurt to have some talent along with it. It's a miracle that I was able to experience so much, I'm grateful to everyone. It was also important: I immediately fell in love with Szeged. If it hadn't been like that, of course I would have left"
- he told Délmagyar in 2012.
We also saw Levente Király in the following films: Nem (1965), All beginnings are difficult (1966), Harlequin and his lover (1967), Three nights of love (1967), A small place under the sun (1973), Getno (2004) ), Chapters from the Book of Virtues (2006), Adventurers (2008), Tabló – Everything behind an investigation! (2008).
The greatest honor
"He received one of the biggest awards in his career on September 21, 2006, thanks to a coincidence, exactly on the day of Hungarian drama. The Actors of the 11 Nations elected him among them with a unanimous decision, and thus Király became the first holder of the title to spend his entire career in a rural theater. Since 2013, he has been a regular member of the Theater Arts Department of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, and has also won several awards. The numerous recognitions also reveal that although his career as a Szegedian initially received less attention,
the numerous large-scale performances and the likeable private person behind it earned him professional and audience success.
With numerous theater and film roles behind her, she approaches the field with the same humility and curiosity as when she first stepped onto the stage in Szeged as a fresh graduate of the university," writes Noémi Kecskés.
Levente Király testified: "We can never be sure before the presentation! The actor who says about himself that, well, I will be divine in this role, is a ridiculous figure. When an engineer is commissioned to design a house, he can say with confidence that it will be good, it will not collapse. However, our profession is much more difficult to measure and much more unpredictable. Of course, I'm an eternal doubter anyway."
Featured image: artist Levente Király. Photo: Péter Kollányi / MTI
