Jiri Stanislav

Jiri Stanislav appeared in Coronation Street in July 1983 as Mr Karp, a Russian visitor with a trade delegation to Baldwin’s Casuals.

He was born in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1946 where for a time he lived and worked in a mining town. He fled the country after the Soviet invasion of 1968 and moved to Canada where he first worked in a hotel kitchen, then as a waiter and finally as an actor in a mime theatre travelling the country. In a total change of career, he then became a driver and minder for Canadian Prime Minister John Turner as well as advising him on matters concerning the Czech minorities within the country. He then moved to the UK at the start of the 1980s, taking up acting work again, appearing in The Bill, White Nights and the 1982 Jeremy Irons film Moonlighting.

He returned to his homeland in 2000 and is the chairman of the Czech National Socialist Party as well as mayor of his home village.