A favorite laugher of many, Géza Hofi he left behind a huge void 22 years ago when he bowed his head to eternal sleep. The most famous figure in the history of Hungarian cabaret was on stage until the end of his life, his last performance was at the Madách Kamara Theater three days before his death. The inimitable actor with a unique sense of humor was saved by doctors in 1990, when he had his first heart attack. After that, he got sick a lot, although according to his own admission, he switched to soy stew and even gave up red wine. Finally, 22 years ago today, on April 10, 2002, at the age of 65, his heart stopped.
“So your mother, so where are you?” – Géza Hofi brilliantly absorbed József Sas: an amazing story about the two legends
He also dared to joke with politicians
The uncrowned king of humor stood alone in front of the audience with a minimalist set, almost without direction, and regularly poured out the best jokes and remarks. He didn’t spare Hungarian politicians either with his iconic jokes. When he became a celebrated star of the country through his TV appearances, he dared to impersonate the chess player János Kádár. In addition to him, Orbán also addressed some thoughts to Viktor Orbán and the system in his special style, but he never claimed to be an oppositionist or an online revolutionary, as he referred to himself as “simply” a comedian.
He owed his love to a mistake
For the last seven years, the ancestor of Hungarian stand-up lived happily with his second wife, With Ildiko. Their meeting was thanks to a wrongly dialed phone call: Géza accidentally dialed a phone number wrongly, so Ildikó came in on the other end of the line, but even they could not have imagined how much love would result from the incident. The comedian then invited his lover to the theater one evening, who went with him without thinking, and even asked him to hold her hand and watch the show together. Yes, but it turned out that it was Hofi’s own performance that night.
Géza Hofi immediately fell in love with Ildiko / Photo: Ringier archive
They considered her daughter’s lover
The cabaret star was twenty years older than his wife, so it happened more than once that they were thought to be a father-daughter duo. Because of this, Ildikó initially claimed to be older and started wearing her hair in a bun to look older.
“Once we watched a play, and Imre Sinkovits greeted Géza from the stage: Welcome to our Hofélia and her beautiful daughter! – we had a good laugh” – previously mentioned by Ildikó Hoffmann.
To this day, many people are fans of it / Photo: Fortepan
That’s why he never had a child
After a while, Géza was asked more and more often when he planned to marry his love, in which case he always retorted: “Because Ildi hasn’t asked for my hand in marriage yet”. So in the end Ildikó got engaged to him, and then they got married secretly, and only the two of them were present at the wedding. Years ago, his widow also revealed that she would have liked to give birth to a son to the comedian, but when the topic of having children was raised, Géza reacted as follows:
A person is either a father or Hofi – he concluded briefly.
This is how his last day passed
Life with Hofi was full of fun and laughter, even when he was very sick he tried to cheer up Ildiko. On their last day, there was no hint of the impending tragedy either, as the couple headed for their vacation home in Visegrád, and they sang the whole time during the car ride. They stopped at their favorite restaurant on the way, so they didn’t make it to their weekend house. The visit dragged on, so they headed home instead, and the comedian made a few phone calls with his friends at home, and then simply fell asleep.
His heart stopped at dawn on April 10th, Wednesday. It’s horrible to say. Géza was tired, he died like that – recalled his widow a few years ago.
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