Miodrag Petrović Čkalja


Miodrag Petrović, known by his stage name Čkalja, was a Serbian actor and one of the most popular comedians of former Yugoslavia.

Biography

He performed in the theatre, where he displayed a talent for comedy, especially in plays by Branislav Nušić, his favourite author. However, it was the new medium of television that made him famous. From 1959 until the 1980s, he appeared in many TV comedy shows: Servisna stanica, Dežurna ulica, Spavajte mirno, Sačulatac, Crni sneg, Ljudi i papagaji, Ljubav na seoski način, Kamiondžije and Vruć vetar.
Čkalja retired in the late 1980s and spent his last years peacefully. His last public appearance was during the DOS election campaign in 2000 in the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević.
In 2005, a statue of Čkalja was placed in front of his birth house in Kruševac. In 2006, a street in the Zvezdara neighborhood in Belgrade was named after him.