Elegance, poise and intellectual refinement radiate equally from his acting. Both in his youth and later in life, these were the qualities most frequently attributed to his performances. Over a rich and substantial career, he played almost 150 stage roles, most of them leading parts, and his work was recognised by both audiences and critics. Wider audiences primarily know him from his film work: he appeared in some ninety cinema and television films, and lent his voice as narrator to numerous educational programmes. The archives of Magyar Rádió (MR, The Hungarian Radio Corporation) hold more than 3,000 recordings of his, and with his distinctively beautiful voice he also worked extensively in dubbing, contributing to over 300 films.
From the very beginning of his career, he enjoyed the deep affection of audiences. A telling indication of this is the way contributors recall his persona and his roles even today on the Színház.hu forum [a major Hungarian theatre portal]:
“I remember the time when Mécs played in Szeged, at the start of his career. I was a university student in Szeged then, and in every girls’ dormitory room a photograph of Károly Mécs was on display.”
Referring to Két emelet boldogság (lit. Two Floors of Happiness): “Károly Mécs’s dark blue (or black) pullover made an especially deep impression on me. Because of it, I wore one myself, with a white shirt and turned-down collar [VL1].”
“He has finally received the Kossuth Prize. Congratulations. He should have received it long, long ago.”
“Let us recall one of his greatest film successes, A Noszty fiú esete… (Young Noszty and Mary Tóth). In this film he vied with Pál Jávor [iconic Hungarian film actor].”
“Károly Mécs is a fine actor. He is still present in our theatrical life today, but not in the place he deserves.”
“I may consider myself very fortunate, for I saw the young, newly emerging Károly Mécs play several leading roles in Szeged. He was Romeo in a very beautiful production directed by József Szendrő, with Éva Pap as Juliet and Ferenc Kiss as Friar Laurence. He played young István Nagy alongside Teri Földi’s marvellous Teacher in A tanítónő (The Schoolmistress). That nearly fifty years have passed since then? It is unbelievable, so we need not believe it.”
“I also saw him as the motorcycle-loving mechanic in Two Floors of Happiness, and I found him utterly convincing as Feri Noszty and as Richárd Baradlay. The only thing I cannot believe – neither of him nor of myself – is that time passes.”
Among these recollections, the following comment is the most characteristic and the most eloquent in its summary:
“He still performs in many places; he is a sought-after artist. And when he steps on stage, people in the audience still whisper to each other: ‘Look, he’s here!’ For he still brings light to the stage. Mécs [a pun on the Hungarian ‘mécs’ meaning ‘light’].”
Károly Mécs learned the fundamentals of acting at the Rózsahegyi Kálmán Színészképző Stúdió (Rózsahegyi Kálmán Acting Studio). From 1957 to 1961 he studied at the Színház- és Filmművészeti Főiskola (Academy of Drama and Film, today University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest). Already in his second year he appeared on stage at the Nemzeti Színház (National Theatre), the Katona József Theatre and the newly formed Petőfi Theatre. In 1959 he was cast at the National Theatre in a significant role that later became a leading part: he played Laci Joó in Kormos ég (lit. Sooty Sky) by József Darvas. He also appeared as Marchbanks in Shaw’s Candida, as the Deputy Commander in Arbuzov’s Tanya, and as Alexas in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
His promising start was further strengthened by film work in 1960. While still a student, he appeared in Merénylet (Crime at Dawn), in Young Noszty and Mary Tóth and in the emblematic film Two Floors of Happiness.
After graduating from the Academy of Drama and Film in 1961, he joined the National Theatre of Szeged. Here, until 1963, he again played a succession of significant and leading roles, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Petrovics in A cirkuszhercegnő (The Circus Princess), and young Nagy in The Schoolmistress. He also played the title roles in Goethe’s Egmont and Čapek’s The Robber, as well as Richard Dudgeon in Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple. During these years he continued to appear in films, such as Az ígéret földje (lit. The Promised Land) and Napfény a jégen (Sunshine on the Ice). He also played the leading role in Márton Keleti’s film Esős vasárnap (Rainy Sunday, 1962).
The next phase of his theatrical career may be defined as a broad arc: the decades from 1963 onward were shaped above all by the Thália Theatre and its successor institutions (Arizona / Művész Theatre / Thália Association). The majority of his approximately 150 stage roles belongs to this period. His long line of great classical roles began with the title part in Racine’s Britannicus, followed by, among others, Father Séraphin in Diderot’s The Nun, Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Lieutenant in Endre Fejes’ Mocorgó, Borics in Sándor Petőfi’s Tigris és hiéna (lit. Tiger and Hyena), and Lemminkäinen from the Kalevala. He played Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Istók Bolond in Sándor Weöres’s [major Hungarian poet and playwright] A holdbeli csónakos (lit. The Boatman on the Moon), Prince Rama in the Rámájana, King Andrew II in Bánk bán, Heilbutt in Fallada’s Little Man, What Now? and Abutalip Kuttybaev in the adaptation of Chinghiz Aitmatov’s The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. He portrayed Artúr Görgey [19th-century Hungarian general] in Gyula Illyés’s Fáklyaláng (Torchlight), and Pope Pius VII in A pápa és a császár (lit. The Pope and the Emperor).
The two decades he spent at the Thália Theatre also provided a form of professional stability. Under the guidance of Károly Kazimir [influential Hungarian theatre director], the theatre became an artistic workshop known for its search for new directions and innovations in theatrical language, and Mécs played an active part in this process. This period greatly contributed to his artistic maturation. In A japán szalon (lit. The Japanese Salon), for instance, the critic of Színház magazine (J. Szántó, 1979/6) attributed the production’s finest performance to him. Writing on Torchlight, the same periodical observed: “For this reason – and perhaps due to Károly Mécs’s flawless performance – the traitor unmasked at the premiere, the real-politician advocating acceptance of compromise, could emerge as the representative of the viable path; overcoming thereby both the more consistent advocate of ideals validated by history and the Hungarian legend itself.” (Anna Földes, Színház, 1984/2.)
Even after the “great two-decade period” at the Thália Theatre, the now fully mature actor continued to receive major roles in the successor theatres. Among these were Domitius in István Eörsi’s Az áldozat (lit. The Sacrifice), Dr Vilmos Mátyás in Endre Fejes’s Rozsdatemető (Generation of Rust), and Don Ottavio in András Nagy’s Don Juan, a sevillai, a kővendég és a szédelgő (lit. Don Juan, the Sevillian, the Stone Guest and the Impostor).
This era also marked a period of new openings for Mécs. In 1990, alongside his roles in Hungary, he played a leading role at the Theater beim Auersperg in Vienna. From 1993 he became a founding member and principal actor of the Szekszárd Deutsche Bühne company, a German-language theatre of Szekszárd, where he had the opportunity to perform in German in such roles as Odoaker in Dürrenmatt’s Romulus the Great and Mackie Messer in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. “Given his physical presence, Károly Mécs is not a typical gang-leader as Mackie Messer in the Szekszárd Threepenny Opera. He is a refined and respectable gentleman, a well-dressed, middle-aged man who seems entirely trustworthy,” noted Júlia Szekrényessy in Színház (1994/04).
Throughout his years at the Thália Theatre and its successor theatres, and afterwards as well, Károly Mécs appeared in numerous guest roles. He performed, among other places, at the Merlin Theatre, the National Theatre, the Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre of Budapest), as well as in Pécs, Sopron, and at the Szigligeti Theatre of Szolnok. Since 2001 he has also appeared regularly as a guest at the Hungarian State Opera. Since the early 2000s, even in retirement, he has continued to perform the leading role in Sándor Márai’s Kaland (lit. Adventure), a play that has now surpassed 170 performances.
“First we must mention Károly Mécs’s portrayal of Péter Kádár. Mécs – who celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday during the rehearsal period – is one of the last great specimens of an older actorly type. A man straight as a fir tree, belying his age; an unshakeable character whose word is command. He commands the stage as a true captain in the midst of a raging storm. His performance explains why his subordinates in the play idolise him. He is perfectly able to conjure up Márai’s era, the high-bourgeois milieu of the late 1930s, when a given word carried irresistible weight. The premiere’s success was a well-deserved birthday gift for this great artist,” wrote Magyar Teátrum Online of the Adventure production in Szolnok.
In 2003, in Budaörs, he also tried his hand at directing, with success. He not only staged but also performed in Miklós Tóth-Máté’s plays A zsoltáros és a zsoldos (lit. The Psalmist and the Mercenary) and Rodostó, appearing in the latter as Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II [leader of the early 18th-century Hungarian anti-Habsburg uprising] both in Budaörs and in Košice [Hung.: Kassa, a historically important Hungarian cultural centre in present-day Slovakia].
His film career remained uninterrupted throughout. At the start of his career he already played significant characters on screen – among them Feri Noszty in Young Noszty and Mary Tóth. Owing to his distinctive presence and strong acting temperament, directors often cast him as dashing army or hussar officers. Such was his legendary Richárd Baradlay in A kőszívű ember fiai (Men and Banners), directed by Zoltán Várkonyi, in 1965. He continued to work steadily in films of varied genres; his filmography includes A napfény íze (Sunshine, 1999), Sacra Corona (2001), animations such as Macskafogó (Cat City), as well as countless television dramas and documentary narrations.
He was a regular contributor to the Iskolatelevízió (lit. School Television), poetry programmes and radio plays, and was an almost daily presence on the MR Hungarian Radio. As a dubbing actor he contributed to 324 films, serving most frequently as the Hungarian voice of Paul Newman and Omar Sharif, and on several occasions of Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Marcello Mastroianni, Gregory Peck, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Michael Caine and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
He also appeared in dozens of solo literary and musical evenings both in Hungary and abroad. He collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Antal Doráti [Hungarian-American conductor], Christoph von Dohnányi [German conductor of Hungarian descent], the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra under the direction of János Rolla, as well as pianist Jenő Jandó, conductor László Kovács, the Keller String Quartet, and the Gryllus brothers [Hungarian folk musicians]. With programmes selected from the finest German translations of Hungarian literature, he performed from Vienna to Berlin, from Erlangen to Düsseldorf. He also held evenings of Hungarian literature in Vienna, Ulm, Cologne, Stockholm and even Cape Town.
He participated several times in charitable events, including evenings organised for the benefit of churches in Badacsonytomaj, Ábrahámhegy and Máriaremete, and in support of building the Saint Michael Church in Kékesd. He also performed at the Semmelweis University, Budapest and in numerous medical institutions.
“I cannot complain about my career, for I have always been surrounded by the affection of audiences, and this has always mattered most to me. I hope that hearing of my present award, those who like me will rejoice with me,” said actor Károly Mécs upon receiving the Kossuth Prize [Hungary’s highest state award for artistic achievement]. “All the awards I have received earlier are important to me; I regard the Kazinczy Prize, for instance, as a gift from my colleagues, while the Kossuth Prize is the most prestigious recognition of my career as an actor,” he told the Hungarian Telegraphic Office (MTI) in 2013.
Every performance represents a fresh excitement for him, and with advancing age he has come to feel ever more deeply the responsibility of stepping onto the stage. Acting, he holds, is a profession in perpetual motion, and its fundamental condition is continuous self-questioning. He always longed to hide behind masks, yet in the first half of his career he essentially played variations of his own character. At fifty the opportunity finally arrived for him to perform a role radically different from his own personality, in István Tamás’s The Pope and the Emperor. In playing the Pope, he had to become a seventy-year-old, heart-diseased old man, above all from within. In the forthcoming portrait film of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA), he also speaks about his method of shaping a role. Its first station, he explains, is the actor’s intuition of the character; during the rehearsal process this intuition grows heavy and uncertain, but eventually he reaches the fully formed role, which turns out to coincide with that original first insight.
In 2016 he was elected among ‘a nemzet művészei’ (Artists of the Nation), filling the place left vacant by the death of László Sinkó (noted Hungarian actor) in 2015.
In September 2021 he announced his retirement, explaining that he wished to live the remainder of his life in tranquillity.
[2022]