Portrait of Karel Gott

Birthday profile

Karel Gott

Karel Gott, Czech singer-songwriter and actor (died 2019)

Born
July 14, 1939
Died
October 1, 2019
Zodiac sign
Cancer
Birth year
1939

About Karel Gott

Karel Gott (14 July 1939 – 1 October 2019) was a Czech singer, considered the most successful male singer in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. He was voted the country's best male singer in the annual Český slavík (Czech Nightingale) national music award 42 times, most recently in 2017. He achieved considerable success in the USSR and the German-speaking countries, where he was known as "the Golden Voice of Prague", winning the Goldene Stimmgabel award three times (1982, 1984, and 1995). Over the course of his career he released over 100 albums and 100 compilation albums, and sold an estimated 50–100 million records worldwide, 23 million of them in the German-speaking market, and about 15 million in Czechoslovakia and its successor states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Around this time Gott travelled abroad (to Poland) for the first time, with the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra, conducted by Karel Krautgartner. In 1962, Gott released his first single with Supraphon, a duet with the jazz singer, Vlasta Průchová entitled Až nám bude dvakrát tolik (When we are twice as old). That year Gott appeared in the first Zlatý slavík (Golden Nightingale) national poll, placing 49th with three votes. He was voted the country's best male singer in the annual Český slavík national music award 42 times, most recently in 2017.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Karel Gott timeline

  1. In 1962, Gott released his first single with Supraphon, a duet with the jazz singer, Vlasta Průchová entitled Až nám bude dvakrát tolik (When we are twice as old).
  2. He was voted the country's best male singer in the annual Český slavík national music award 42 times, most recently in 2017.

The world when Karel Gott was born

Karel Gott was born in 1939. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1939

  • #1 song"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland
  • Top movieGone with the Wind
  • Best-selling bookThe Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentLou Gehrig delivers his "Luckiest Man" farewell speech
  • Top headlineGermany invades Poland — World War II begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular television broadcasts in the US (NBC)
  • Defining fadThe Wizard of Oz mania
  • Notable inventionNylon stockings
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population130.9M

1939 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Karel Gott's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19392026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,200$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population130.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.