The development of an actor’s career is invariably exposed to certain ‘higher powers’ — ranging from that elusive good fortune, through the prevailing party politics, to the ‘grace of God’ itself. Cecília Esztergályos’s life story is a perfect textbook example of how, despite numerous constraining circumstances, a fully realised acting career can indeed be achieved. It was merely a single decision in cultural policy that determined she would not be counted among our great ballerinas but rather become known as one of Hungary’s most versatile and colourful actresses.
For nine years she trained and perfected her movements at the State Ballet Institute. Not even a bout of poliomyelitis broke her determination or enthusiasm, for she knew that if she rose to the ranks of the best, the solo roles of the classical ballet repertoire awaited her at the Opera House. Matters unfolded differently. Before the newly qualified ballerina could even receive her diploma, a cultural-policy decision initiated by György Aczél [leading cultural politician of the Kádár regime 1956-1988] had already been made: the nine students graduating from the State Ballet Institute in 1960 — among them Cecília Esztergályos — were assigned to the newly forming Ballet Pécs. The choreographic and artistic leadership genius of Imre Eck, the founder of the company, soon became evident. “His modes of expression, grounded in classical ballet technique yet decidedly modern and addressed to contemporary audiences, and his innovations in form and style, attracted vast audiences nationwide.” [1] Critics took note of Esztergályos’s “refined movement” as early as 3 January 1961, at the company’s first public appearance, in Változatok egy találkozásra (lit. Variations on a Meeting) and Concerto a szivárvány színeire (lit. Concerto in the Colours of the Rainbow). She and Antal Fodor “proved worthy partners for one another”, as well as for Imre Eck, who also appeared as a dancer in his own choreographies. [2] During the company’s next ballet evening, Rudolf Maros and Imre Eck’s Bányászballada (lit. Miners’ Ballad), she was already the soloist — portraying the role of Coal — a role that took her to several international venues, from Dresden to London. In the political climate of the time, these foreign tours also attested to the privileged position of the company, a position ensured by the patronage of the all-powerful cultural politician György Aczél. Yet, despite often proving herself in solo roles, the young ballerina never felt professionally secure. Recognition from Róbert Nógrádi, director of the Pécs National Theatre, his assurance that Esztergályos’s presence was essential to the company and the theatre, came too late. Personal and professional turning points steered her towards new paths.
She was only in her first season with the Ballet Pécs when István Szabó [film director, screenwriter, and opera director, Academy Award winner in 1981] cast her in the leading role of his 1961 graduation film Te (You), producing a result that revealed the ‘many-faceted’ actress: “Whimsical and sad, fierce and moved, laughing, giggling, grotesquely beautiful, fulfilled in happiness yet trembling with fear. These flashes of expression lived both separately and in unison.” [3] By the end of the 1962–63 season, when the decisive thought took shape in her mind to leave the company, she already had a series of film offers before her, such as Tücsök (lit. The Cricket) (dir. Miklós Markos, 1963), Az aranyfej (The Golden Head) (dir. Richard Thorpe, James Hill, 1964), A pénzcsináló (The Moneymaker) (dir. Frigyes Bán, 1964), and Álmodozások kora (Age of Illusions) (dir. István Szabó, 1965).
At this point she possessed no real professional skills. She attempted to draw upon what little had remained with her from Ferenc Nádasi’s acting classes during her years at the Ballet Institute. After the strict discipline of dance, the bustle of film shoots came as a relief to her, a world “coloured by pranks, playful coincidences and minor mishaps.” [4] Meanwhile her brother, Károly Esztergályos, was studying film directing at the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts. In their first collaboration, the 1963 graduation film Limonádé citrommal (lit. Lemonade with Lemon), Cecília Esztergályos was cast in a role perfectly suited to her — that of a ballet student. Before long the idea took shape that, if she wished to succeed as an actress, she needed to return to the classroom. This decision was difficult not least because she would have to break the vow she had taken after her successful secondary school leaving exam: “Never at school again!” [5] Her dedication, however, was recognised by the admissions committee of the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, for she already had the experience of performing successful solo roles and touring abroad as a practising dancer. In 1964 Zsuzsa Simon launched a new acting class at the Academy, yet she failed to assign Esztergályos tasks suited to her personality and abilities. The one exception was the final examination performance, The Gentlemen, a beat musical by Jan Schneider and Bohuslav Ondráček. Apart from one or two musical numbers, the piece had little to do with beat music; it was a story about young people, addressed to the young, with energetic music and choreography. The graduating students achieved such success that Simon’s production was also performed at the Városmajor Open-Air Stage in the summer of 1968. “Cecília Esztergályos no longer needs to be discovered; she has proved herself once again, this time showing that she is capable of anything on stage,” wrote Sándor Szalkai in Magyar Hírlap. [6] Among her teachers she benefited most from Imre Montágh’s speech technique classes and József Gáti’s lessons in artistic speech. Yet the key master of her career was not to be found among the Academy’s lecturers. Károly Kazimir, the chief director of the Thália Theatre, contracted the nearly disheartened beginner at the last possible moment. Although during her practical training she performed in several successful productions at the József Attila Theatre – such as István Kállai’s Csodabogár (lit. The Oddball), Charles Mole’s The Murder in the Vicarage, Viktor Sergeyevich Rozov’s Two for the Road – the company did not envisage a long-term future for her. She had almost accepted an offer from Róbert Nógrádi, director of the Pécs National Theatre, to return to Pécs as a now-qualified actress when Károly Kazimir entrusted her with the title role in Zsigmond Móricz’s Csibe [Csibe was the nickname of Móricz’s adopted daughter]. Out of superstition she signed her contract only after the premiere at the theatre’s then premises at 35 Paulay Ede Street, yet both the audience and the critics confirmed that Kazimir had chosen well. “Cecília Esztergályos, who plays the title role, evokes with complete authenticity the girl created by Zsigmond Móricz; in her movements, gestures and entire presence she fully embodied the imagined, the dreamt Csibe. At times she does not yet handle her voice and intonation with sufficient control, and can be louder than necessary, but these lapses are often compensated for by her magnificent moments,” [7] wrote István Csík in his illustrated review in Film, Színház, Muzsika. Vera Létay, writing in Élet és Irodalom, likewise noted that in the role of Csibe the “Academy student” proved worthy of the trust placed in her, for she “conveyed with finesse the contrasting yet tonally unified shades of childish naïveté and the prematurely matured sobriety born of deprivation.” [8] With this successful debut, Cecília Esztergályos began her seventeen-year tenure at the Thália Theatre. Even within the first six years she created memorable characterisations such as Erzsébet Bolygó Kis in Sándor Bródy’s A dada (The Nanny), the archangel Raphael in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Paprika Jancsi [Kasperle or Pulchinella] in Sándor Weöres’s A holdbéli csónakos (lit. The Boatman on the Moon), Hanumán (Ramayana), Okaru (Takeda Izumo – Miyoshi Shōraku – Namiki Senryū: Chūshingura), Zelmaide in Denis Diderot’s The Indiscreet Jewels, Esztike in Béla Zsolt’s Erzsébetváros (lit. Elizabethtown) and Shirin the Baker’s Wife (One Thousand and One Nights). These roles elevated her into the ranks of the company’s leading actors, whose every stage appearance demanded attention. In 1974 István Nánay, writing in Színház, praised her technical mastery in the following terms: “She complements the traditionally employed actor’s tools — used at a high professional level — with her command of dance, and with it her capacity to use movement, gesture and posture for characterisation. Each of Esztergályos’s figures possesses an individualised system of movement and a distinctive character, and it is this surplus that sets her roles apart from others of similar type.” [9] She traces her humour to the archetype of the ancient actor — the clown: “She belongs to the great family of those who make us laugh, to those who hold a distorted mirror before their fellow human beings; whose laughter does not soothe but rather unsettles; who show the ugly in distortion and exaggeration and are moved by beauty; who perceive and reveal the grotesque traits of phenomena and thus keep alert the mind inclined towards habit; and whose laughter may help make human beings more humane.” [10]
In September 1973, Kazimir succeeded Emil Keres as director, although he had already played a decisive role in shaping the theatre’s artistic profile as its artistic leader. His name became closely associated with the domestic stage adaptations of major epic works (the Kalevala, the Ramayana, Karagöz, One Thousand and One Nights, Gilgamesh, Petrushka, Hiawatha, and the Song of Songs), all of which provided significant roles for Cecília Esztergályos. The premieres of these large-scale productions were held in the Városliget (City Park’s) Körszínház, also established by Kazimir. Among the characters portrayed by Esztergályos, two performances attracted particular critical acclaim: Hanuman, the monkey minister in the Ramayana, and the eponymous lead role of Petrushka, the living puppet of the Russian fairground comedy. Péter Molnár Gál devoted an entire article in Népszabadság to Esztergályos’s portrayal of Hanuman. The critic – famed for his vitriolic pen – argued that, whereas in some earlier roles her dance talent might have appeared “exhibitionistic,” in the Ramayana she “places her refined movement culture in the service of a complete realisation of the role. There is not a single ‘Esztergályos-gesture’. It is not the actress who is being tested, she is not displaying her skills. Every feat derives from the inner logic of the character she embodies.” [11] By the end of the play, Hanuman emerges as a complex human figure, as vulnerable and as hungry for recognition as the spectator. As Molnár Gál observed, the actor’s monkey minister “must be loved not because he performs dazzling movements, but because he offers poetry – the poetry of dramatic talent and human portrayal.” [12]
With Petrushka, Kazimir brought to the stage a vision of Europe’s theatrical folk art, a colourful, exuberant celebration of vitality. In this “earthy, raw, full-blooded” role, it was precisely Esztergályos’s fragility that generated her particular magic. “By this means, the figure – strange as it may seem – becomes gentle. However boisterous she is, she becomes lyrical. However awkward, she becomes witty, her earthiness an accomplished bravura,” wrote Tibor Gyurkovics in his author’s note. He also emphasised that Esztergályos was “not the Petrushka of tricks, splits and somersaults,” but rather gave form to “the inner chatterings of her personality, the ‘figure of her soul’”, something very few of her female colleagues could achieve. [13]
Alongside these so-called clown roles, substantial female characters also found her. In the Song of Songs, she played the seductive Leah, the beautiful Potiphar’s Wife, and the weary, elderly Sarah – all within the same evening. She portrayed the simultaneously temperamental and formidable prima donna Sári Fedák in Bal négyes páholy (lit. Box Four on the Left), written by the duo Andor Kellér and István Békeffy. The late revue star Miss Arizona was likewise brought to life with effortless naturalness. Despite the titular role, this production centred primarily on Rátonyi’s character, Sándor Rozsnyai. This was hardly accidental: alongside Ágnes Fedor and György Szilágyi, Róbert Rátonyi was the play’s third co-author. “Here it is no longer the heroic struggle of a woman set against the history of the variety stage, but the rise – and the necessary fall under external pressures – of a manager from the interwar period,” [14] observed András Lukácsy. Perhaps for this reason the actress suffered deep disappointment two years later when, despite being offered the opportunity on the main stage to portray a full-blooded revue dancer in her full glory, Kazimir allocated the role to another performer. Just as swiftly as she had resolved, two decades earlier, to leave Pécs, she now parted ways with the Thália Theatre. She was routinely described in critical appreciations as “many-sided” and “impossible to pigeonhole.” The public had already seen her in dozens of television and film productions when her performances in Rezső Szörény’s films – BÚÉK! (lit. Happy New Year!) and Boldog születésnapot, Marilyn! (lit. Happy Birthday, Marilyn!) earned awards at both domestic and international film festivals. According to Tamás Koltai, Esztergályos became “a moving rather than merely an exciting actress” on screen, where she revealed her “creased face, furrowed by inner lines.” “In Happy New Year (dir. Rezső Szörény, 1977) the momentary nausea of a hangover merely flashed across her features. In Ajándék ez a nap (lit. This Day is a Gift) (dir. Péter Gothár, 1979), the determined attempt to break free rendered her gaze increasingly sardonic. In Vámmentes házasság (lit. Duty Free Marriage) (dir. János Zsombolyai, 1980), amid the jovial house-party atmosphere, a pair of eyes suddenly brightened with tears betrayed domestic torment.” [15] In Happy Birthday, Marilyn! (dir. Rezső Szörény, 1981), a film built around the parallel with Marilyn Monroe, the portrayal of the provincial actress Mari Szabó enabled the “almost complete unfolding” of Esztergályos’s talent. Zoltán Sumonyi recalled in Élet és Irodalom one of the film’s most memorable moments: “When she meets the son from one of her earlier marriages, and the six- or eight-year-old boy – living with his father – does not greet his mother, a fleeting expression of resigned pain appears on Esztergályos’s face, of a kind perhaps Marilyn Monroe could never have produced.” [16] During the 1970s and 1980s, Esztergályos Cecília was among the most sought-after actresses in Hungary, appearing in such popular television series as Felelet (lit. Oral Examination) (directed by Éva Zsurzs) and Nyolc évszak (lit. Eight Seasons), produced by István Márton and Gábor Várkonyi.
She began the new theatrical season of 1984 at the National Theatre, then under the directorship of Dezső Malonyai. Her debut on the National Theatre’s chamber stage, the Várszínház, was in the female lead of Ákos Kertész’s Családi ház manzárddal (lit. Family House with a Mansard) – a “bitter comedy.” According to some critics, the character of the wife, Erzsébet Burián, sat somewhat uneasily within the psychologically realist idiom cultivated by the newly assembled ensemble. Endre Varjas, however, writing in Élet és Irodalom, attributed the “most superb moments” of the production to Cecília Esztergályos – despite his detailed enumeration of the play’s shortcomings and Miklós Szurdi’s direction. These moments, he argued, sprang partly from the actress’s “elemental talent,” and partly from those scenes in which “she does not have to overlay her performance with excessive verbiage.” [17] During her five years as a member of the National Theatre, she was given excellent opportunities to display yet more of her “many faces” in classical works (Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters; Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s King John; William Shakespeare’s Henry IV). She collaborated with leading directors such as János Mrsán, Imre Kerényi, Miklós Vámos and Ferenc Sík. A particularly playful opportunity emerged in the castle theatre in Gyula, the production of A festett király (lit. The Painted King), written by fellow actor János Gosztonyi and directed by Iván Darvas. Alongside the title role performed by István Bubik, Esztergályos portrayed Babó, the long-abandoned former lover. She also appeared as a guest artist in Székesfehérvár, where her colleague and close friend, István Bujtor, directed Cactus Flower. In the role of Stéphanie, the assistant, she dazzled audiences for two consecutive seasons in this musical comedy by Pierre Barillet. Of all her roles at the National Theatre, she felt the deepest artistic affinity with the heroine of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. As Maggie seeks to save her alcoholic husband and preserve their relationship, so – by her own admission – Esztergályos longed for a balanced family life: “A compulsive attachment to the ideal one once chose and carefully sketched for oneself; fidelity to an ideal which, necessarily, is bound to another human being, for that ideal grew out of the imagined world of an ideal family life, shaped to one’s own likeness.” [18] As her relationship with Kazimir, meanwhile, had been restored, the finest review of this period came after the premiere of A papagáj meséi a hűtlen és hűséges asszonyokról (lit. The Parrot’s Tales of Faithful and Unfaithful Women), staged at the Körszínház. As the parrot – narrator of these edifying, and at times risqué, tales assembled from Sanskrit literature and the Mahābhārata – she moved with “the assurance of a ballerina.” Anna Földes, a prominent voice in Nők Lapja, described her performance thus: “At times she plays her voice like a violin, at others like a trombone. Indeed – with every part of her body. She is an actress of whom it may be said, not figuratively but literally, that she can play her role with her back or her feet. While half the company declaims and gesticulates facing the audience, the parrot, standing motionless at the back of the stage with her back turned, silently commands attention. Esztergályos’s performance is not seamless, not flawless, yet she alone discovers the only appropriate performance style.” [19] Her last role on the Hevesi Sándor Square stage was in István Csurka’s Megmaradni (lit. To Endure). Staged in 1988, during the final days of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, the drama – which focuses on Hungarian–Romanian ethnic tensions – possessed exceptional topical force and sparked significant public debate. Esztergályos played the sole Romanian character, Agneta, the surgical nurse. “A mere adjustment of her sock and her entire passionate being testify that love recognises neither borders nor national differences,” [20] wrote Miklós Apáti in Film, Színház, Muzsika.
The news that the new director, Imre Csiszár, had decided – like with many of her colleagues – not to renew Esztergályos’s contract, was met with bewilderment by both the public and the profession. The press could not fathom how an artist of her stature might be left “without a role” at the National Theatre. “She has never fit into any box; she has always eluded the so-called canonical roles. She was never an Ophelia, a Desdemona, a Juliet, an Éva – yet she became a successful and beloved actress, and a Merited Artist. Károly Kazimir well understood that an unconventional disposition required unconventional roles, and thus she became unforgettable in her characteristic figures. Yet these figures had to be discovered within her.” [21]
After the initial shock, she found herself at the Petőfi Theatre in Veszprém, where Dezső Kapás had become chief director and László Vámos – himself recently dismissed from the National Theatre – also received directing opportunities. They indeed discerned those “certain characters” within her: Esztergályos’s gift for caricature brought both popular and critical success, whether as the illiterate Mica in Ion Luca Caragiale’s Farsang (Carnival Adventures) (dir. Dan Micu) or as ‘la Môme Crevette’ in Georges Feydeau’s The Lady from Maxim’s (dir. László Vámos) during the 1990-91 season. Her “provincial exile,” however, proved short-lived, as László Ablonczy, the new director of the National Theatre, re-engaged her – only for her career to reach yet another turning point: she was no longer permitted to take on further stage roles.
Approached by producer György Gát and director Miklós Szurdi, she signed a contract to film Família Kft. (lit. Family Ltd.) Hungarian Television’s first sitcom. Over the eight-year history of the series, the diligent mother of the household, Mrs Károly Szép – “Ágica” – became a familiar presence in every Hungarian home. Between 1991 and 1999, the character brought her not only national popularity but became inseparable from Esztergályos’s artistic identity. Her characteristic line, “Eddig-eddig-eddig vagyok!” (lit. “I Am SO Over This!”) entered everyday speech and remains widely quoted. [22] The cast, under the direction of Miklós Szurdi, also produced a musical version of the Szép family’s story, premiered at the Fővárosi Operettszínház (Capital Operetta Theater, today: The Budapest Operetta & Musical Theatre) in 1993 under the title Eddig vagyok! (lit. I Am SO Over This!). The actors were bound by strict contracts: for the first six years they were not permitted to undertake other theatrical commitments alongside the series.
In 1996 György Schwajda invited her to play Cecília, the iconic role of Hanna Honthy, in Imre Kálmán’s operetta The Csárdás Princess. She could not – and did not wish to – resist the temptation. György Gát and Miklós Szurdi placed no obstacles in her way, and thus she performed the first operetta role of her career with great relish in József Bor’s production at the Szigligeti Theatre in Szolnok. “We may marvel at the dazzling performance of an artist visibly starved for the stage; she revels in the play, coquettish, self-assured, discreet, shrewd, colourful and versatile, radiant, resplendent before our eyes,” wrote Mihály Valkó in the local press. [23]
When the daily routine of filming Família Kft. came to an end, the actress – delighting in the freedom of creation – discovered yet another form of self-expression. She mastered the craft of pottery, began firing ceramics, and a few years later realised her artistic visions in painting as well. Over the past two decades a veritable regiment of abstract, dramatic figures, actor portraits and characteristic personae have emerged from her hands, showcased to the wider public in a variety of exhibitions.
Naturally, the joy of performance could not be absent either. Working as a freelancer between 2000 and 2005, she appeared as a guest artist with several companies, among them the Vidám Színpad (Hans Gmür: Tiger Trap, dir. Tibor Kalmár), the Karinthy Theatre (Béla Szenes: Az alvó férj [lit. The Sleeping Husband] dir. Márton Karinthy; Valentyin Petrovics Kataev: Day of Rest, dir. Péter Cseke; Ferenc Karinthy: Szellemidézés [Séance], dir. Márton Karinthy), the Ruttkai Éva Theatre (Robert Thomas: La Perruche et le Poulet, dir. Miklós Nagy), the Piccolo Theatre (Giles Havergal: Travels with My Aunt, dir. Katalin Kőváry), and the Budaörs Játékszín (Girolamo Bargagli: The Pilgrim Woman, dir. Béla Éless). At the Vörösmarty Theatre in Székesfehérvár she once again had the opportunity to play Paprika Jancsi in Sándor Weöres’s fairy-tale play The Boatman on the Moon. Time had left no mark on this former Thália classic: Jancsi the clown entertained the Székesfehérvár audience just as he had three decades earlier at the Thália Theatre, joking with the bumbling, big-hearted Vitéz László (Gyula Szabó), dropping into the splits or standing on his head whenever the fancy took him. The difference was that this production was directed by Katalin Kőváry, formerly a literary associate of Károly Kazimir. Esztergályos delivered a remarkable feat of acting at the end of 2002. Following the death of Ila Schütz, she learned fifty pages of text and four musical numbers within three days to take over the late colleague’s role, Juanita, in Henry Keroul and Albert Barré’s musical play Auntie Léni at the József Attila Theatre. Only a few weeks later she was cast as Julia in Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor, another role previously played by Schütz.
Péter Léner, director of the József Attila Theatre, did not remain ungrateful. Although during these stand-in appearances it had not been possible to offer Esztergályos a contract, he fulfilled his promise two years later. The actress joined the company in Gergely Csiky’s comedy Kaviár (lit. Caviar), which was followed by half a dozen further audience favourites at the Angyalföld playhouse. Edna, the sharp-tongued cleaner in Edward Taylor’s comedy No Dinner for Sinners, drew full houses, as did Mici, the shrewd former actress, in Mici néni két élete (lit. The Two Lives of Auntie Mici), a musical retro piece dramatised by Laura Ruttkay.
While touring every corner of the country with Zoltán Galambos’s Körúti Theatre, her professional path eventually led her back to 35 Paulay Ede Street, the very place from which she had once set out under the guidance of Károly Kazimir. In 2013 the Újszínház, under the directorship of György Dörner, staged Zsigmond Móricz’s Nem élhetek muzsikaszó nélkül (lit. I Can’t Live Without Music) in which the actress was invited to play one of the three elderly matrons, Aunt Zsani. Following its première at the Városmajor Open-Air Stage, Géza Bodolay’s production entered the repertoire of the Újszínház, of which Esztergályos Cecília has been a contracted member since 2014. For her eightieth birthday the director commissioned a celebratory role. Katalin Vajda’s satirical comedy Se itt, se ott (lit. Neither Here nor There) was directed by Viktor Nagy in 2024. “In this tailor-made role Esztergályos Cecília shines and sparkles. Words fail to describe her performance; there is scarcely a laudatory epithet she has not already earned. That she revels in the kindly whimsical, life-affirming, exuberantly cheerful, anything but elderly character of Mucika, and fills the entire playing space with her presence, perhaps conveys the quality of her stage existence and faithfully illustrates the thousand-faced versatility of this remarkable actress,” wrote Ágnes Petővári in her review. [24]
Within her extensive body of work the actress’s solo evenings merit a chapter of their own. The first, titled Apropódium, was assembled in 1978 from her favourite roles and solo numbers at the persuasion of Lilla Mikes, hostess of the Korona Pódium in Buda Castle. As the years passed – new monologues were added, others omitted – the content of the programme evolved. At times she appeared with invited guests, at times alone. In cultural centres or in smoky pubs – wherever space could be found. As she matured with age, so too did the repertoire, and even the title of the evening changed. In the 1980s the actress toured the country with Találkozás Esztergályos Cecíliával (lit. An Evening with Cecília Esztergályos), and in the mid-1990s – parallel to her second autobiographical volume – she titled her compilation Meddig vagyok?! (lit. Am I SO Over It?!). Considering solely her artistic output, she has been sharing her thoughts, joys and sorrows with her beloved audience for nearly five decades; yet that “rascally candour” and “mischievous zest for life” still gleam in her eyes just as brightly as when she first flitted onto the tiny stage of the Korona Pódium with her heart-wrenching clown act. “This actress knows something that no one else does. Something that is hers alone. Something that is: Cecília Esztergályos.” [25]
[1] Bolvári-Takács, Gábor. A Pécsi Balett létrehozásának művészetpolitikai körülményei [lit. The Arts-Policy Context of the Establishment of the Pécs Ballet]. 2021/1 (13th year), pp. 34–38.
[2] Körtvélyes, Géza. Új magyar balettek. A pécsi Nemzeti Színház bemutatója [lit. New Hungarian Ballets. Premiere at the National Theatre of Pécs]. In Népszabadság, 24 January 1961, p. 8.
[3] Nánay, István. Arcok és maszkok. Esztergályos, a clown [lit. Faces and Masks. Esztergályos, the Clown]. In Színház, October 1974 (No. 10), pp. 14–18.
[4] Esztergályos, Cecília. Adj békét, Uram! [lit. Grant Me Peace, Lord!]. In Sportpropaganda, 1984, p. 23.
[5] [n.n.]. Maszk és toll. Esztergályos Cecília: Az eddig megtett útról [lit. Mask and Pen. Cecília Esztergályos: On the Path Travelled So Far]. In Film, Színház, Muzsika, 27 October 1984 (No. 43), pp. 26–27.
[6] Szalkai, Sándor. Gentlemanek. Beat-musical a Városmajorban [lit. Gentlemen. A Beat Musical in Városmajor]. In Magyar Hírlap, 18 July 1968 (No. 64), p. 9.
[7] Csík, István. Élő hagyományok – új utak felé [lit. Living Traditions – Towards New Paths]. In Film, Színház, Muzsika, 20 April 1968 (No. 16), p. 4.
[8] Létay, Vera. A csibe-színdarab regénye [lit. The Story of the “Csibe” Play]. In Élet és Irodalom, 20 April 1968 (No. 16), p. 9.
[9] Nánay, István. Arcok és maszkok. Esztergályos, a clown [lit. Faces and Masks. Esztergályos, the Clown]. In Színház, October 1974 (No. 10), pp. 14–18.
[10] Nánay, István. Arcok és maszkok. Esztergályos, a clown [lit. Faces and Masks. Esztergályos, the Clown]. In Színház, October 1974 (No. 10), pp. 14–18.
[11] Molnár Gál, Péter. A majomminiszter [lit. The Monkey Minister]. In Népszabadság, 25 July 1971 (No. 174), p. 8.
[12] Molnár Gál, Péter. A majomminiszter [lit. The Monkey Minister]. In Népszabadság, 25 July 1971 (No. 174), p. 8.
[13] Gyurkovics, Tibor. Mai színésznőnk [lit. Our Contemporary Actress]. In Film, Színház, Muzsika, 31 July 1976 (No. 31), p. 8.
[14] Lukácsy, András. Miss vagy Mister – Arizona? [lit. Miss or Mister – Arizona?]. In Magyar Hírlap, 4 January 1982 (No. 2), p. 6.
[15] Koltai, Tamás. Bye, bye, Cilike! [Bye, Bye, Cilike!] In Új Tükör, 15 February 1981 (No. 7), p. 27.
[16] Sumonyi, Zoltán. Talányos címek [lit. Enigmatic Titles]. In Élet és Irodalom, 24 January 1981 (No. 4), p. 13.
[17] Varjas, Endre. Mikor (hogyan) kell (lehet) átmenni a falon? [Lit. When (How) Must (Can) One Pass Through the Wall?]. In Élet és Irodalom, 21 September 1984 (No. 38), p. 13.
[18] Esztergályos, Cecília. Adj békét, Uram! [lit. Grant Me Peace, Lord!]. In Sportpropaganda, 1984, p. 142.
[19] (földes) [Földes Anna]. Premier planban: a papagáj. Esztergályos Cecília meséi [lit. In the Foreground: The Parrot. Stories by Cecília Esztergályos]. In Nők Lapja, 25 July 1987.
[20] Apáti, Miklós. Megmaradni [lit. To Endure]. In Film, Színház, Muzsika, 23 July 1988 (No. 30), p. 5.
[21] Kisgergely, József. Szélárnyékban – félárnyékban. Esztergályos Cecília [lit. In the Wind Shadow – In the Half Shade. Cecília Esztergályos]. In Taps, April 1990, pp. 7–8.
[22] Note: Esztergályos first used this “emotional outburst” in Lívia Gyarmathy’s film Egy kicsit én, egy kicsit te [lit. A Little of Me, a Little of You] in 1985.
[23] Valkó, Mihály. Csárdáskirálynő a Szigligetiben [lit. The Csárdás Princess at the Szigligeti]. In Új Néplap, 21 October 1996, p. 3.
[24] Petővári, Ágnes. Review of Vajda Katalin: Se itt, se ott. [Neither Here, Nor There] Available at: https://petovariagnesszinikritika.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/vajda-katalin-se-itt-se-ott/
[25] (b. ö.). Esztergályos Apropódium. Amit csak ő tud [lit. Esztergályos Apropódium. What Only She Can Do]. In Veszprémi Napló, 22 December 1978 (No. 301), p. 5.