EXILE

While WWII devastated Europe, Voskovec and Werich worked hard in America. After arriving with only $100 each in their pocket, they played for Czech compatriots in Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago and worked for BBC and Voice of America. They sent messages of hope back home. In 1941, they moved to NY. With their improved English, they performed in the 1943 Broadway production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, up to four plays a day on Broadway! Voskovec, who divorced his first wife, married for a second time to an American Broadway stage actress, with whom he would have two daughters, and was happy in his new life. However, Werich, who married a Czech theater costume designer back in 1929 and had one daughter with her, missed Prague and his mother. He returned to Czechoslovakia as soon as the war was over in 1945. Voskovec reunited with him in Prague in September 1946.