Film fans remember Vida Jerman primarily for her impressive supporting role as Ms Marijana who earns a living from ironing clothes – and selling her body, in Krešo Golik’s masterpiece Tko pjeva zlo ne misli (One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away)
Only a year after the premiere of the last film she starred in, Neka ostane među nama (Just Between Us) by Rajko Grlić, Vida Jerman passed away. Only a few people knew she was fighting a severe illness, because she rarely mentioned it, and when she happened to, it was always within the context of expressing the faith that her energy and love for life as well as acting would win. She hoped she would return to her life calling with roles that she prepared for as if she had not already had more than a hundred roles in theatre, on film and television. Today’s TV audiences remember her mostly from soap operas such as Villa Maria, Ponos Ratkajevih, Sve će biti dobro and Dolina sunca, as well as impressive supporting roles in many series – comedies (from Naše malo misto to Odmori se, zaslužio si or Stipe u gostima), crime series (Inspektor Vinko, Mamutica) and those for children (Jelenko, Smogovci).
Film fans remember her primarily for her impressive supporting role as Ms Marijana who earns a living by ironing clothes – and selling her body, in Krešo Golik’s masterpiece One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away (Tko pjeva zlo ne misli, 1970). Even though in that role Vida Jerman stood out not just because of her beautiful figure, but also with an impressive level of acting skill, the acting offers she received afterwards were mostly based on her physical attractiveness and not her undeniable talent and acting maturity, a fact she later reminisced about with much sorrow. However, she is also remembered because of her role in the hippy-inspired Maskerada (1971) by the Slovenian director Boštjan Hladnik, in which she took off her clothes – a not so common occurrence in Yugoslav film of that time. She did not get more complex roles from many famous Croatian directors she worked with, such as Lordan Zafranović (Occupation in 26 Tableaux / Okupacija u 26 slika, 1978, Večernja zvona, 1986), Branko Schmidt (Sokol Did Not Love Him / Sokol ga nije volio, 1988, Vukovar se vraća kući, 1994), Dejan Šorak (Oficir s ružom, 1987) and Zoran Tadić (Treća žena, 1997). Her good command of foreign languages (English, German, Italian and Spanish) helped her get many supporting roles in foreign films. Among them the most famous one is Sophie’s Choice (1982) by Alan J. Pakula and starring Meryl Streep, in which Vida Jerman played an SS guard and could, at least partly, show her true potential. Even though she acted opposite Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Omar Sharif and Pierce Brosnan, those were mainly small roles in which she nevertheless managed to express her personality and vivaciousness. Later, she was right to feel bitter about many directors’ treatment of female “objects”.
Nevertheless, Vida Jerman was stubborn, professional, serious and ambitious and showed her acting skills in the theatre. During her studies at the Academy of Drama Arts (which she attended in parallel with the Faculty of Philosophy where she studied foreign languages) and her first professional engagement in the August Cesarec Theatre (today National Theatre in Vraždin) she competently portrayed some complex characters in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren's Profession, Lilian Helman’s The Little Foxes, Shakespeare’s Richard III and Othello and other important plays. She joined the Small Theatre Trešnjevka (today Trešnja Theatre) in 1981 and remained faithful to it until the end of her career. Many people who grew up on theatre plays from that theatre remember her even today. She happily joined her love for acting and languages – in 1973, she began acting in Esperanto and after much success around the world (most fascinating is the performance in front of a 2000 people audience in Peking with the play Virino kiu flustris en uragano ) in 1997, she founded the Ponto theatre group and performed many plays in that language.
Even though it is hard to present her activities and talent with only one film, Oficir s ružom presents a good occasion to remember this extraordinary actress. (Tomislav Kurelec)