Serbian singer and actress Olivera Katarina, a star of the 1960s and 1970s in the former Yugoslavia, died on Tuesday, July 21, at the age of 86, her family announced. She is best known for her role in the film "I Even Met Happy Gypsies," directed by Yugoslavian filmmaker Aleksandar Petrovic.
A crowning achievement at Cannes in 1967
Born Olivera Petrovic in Belgrade on March 5, 1940, she abandoned her law studies to spend a year in Paris, before enrolling at the Belgrade Theatre Academy upon her return to Yugoslavia. She quickly landed her first roles, initially at the national theatre, then in films.
She was 27 when "I Even Met Happy Gypsies" won awards at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, receiving the Special Jury Prize and the International Critics' Prize. The actress played the Gypsy singer Lence, alongside another giant of Yugoslav cinema, Bekim Fehmiu, who died in 2010.
A dual career in film and music
Having adopted the name Olivera Vuco, she went on to act in several other films, while also pursuing a singing career that blended Serbian and Roma folk music with songs performed in Russian, Japanese, Romanian, and Greek. According to the Serbian press, she performed no fewer than 72 concerts at the Olympia, the famous Parisian venue, in 1968.
In 1969, she adopted her mother's first name, Katarina, as her stage name. She had largely withdrawn from the cameras since the 1980s, while remaining a major figure in Serbian culture.
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