Theodor Pištěk, Czech Oscar-winning costume designer, dies at 93

By Canadian Press on December 4, 2025.

PRAGUE (AP) — Theodor Pištěk, a Czech costume and stage designer and painter who won an Academy Award for his work on the 1984 film “Amadeus,” has died. He was 93.

His death was announced on Thursday by the town of Mukařov, just east of Prague, where he lived and was confirmed by his family to the local CTK news agency. They said he died on Wednesday but gave no other details.

Pištěk’s costumes appeared in the films of director František Vláčil from the end of 1950s, including “Marketa Lazarová” and “The Valley of the Bees,” but his most famous work appears in the movies by late Czech-born director Milos Forman.

The two became friends during their mandatory military service in communist Czechoslovakia.

Forman ended up settling in the United States following the 1968 Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia, and while Pištěk remained in Czechoslovakia, they two nonetheless cooperated on films.

Pištěk won an Academy Award for best costume design in multiple-Oscar winner “Amadeus,” which was filmed in Czechoslovakia.

As he accepted the award in 1985, he called it “the biggest and happiest day of my film career.”

Pištěk was also nominated for an Academy award for Forman’s 1989 movie “Valmont.” He won the the French Cesar award for that film.

Pištěk and Forman also worked together on “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”

Pištěk was born on Oct 25, 1932, in Prague to parents who were both actors. He graduated from Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1958. Until the middle of the 1970s, Pištěk was also involved in motor racing as a driver and cars became a subject of paintings he made that were displayed in the United States and elsewhere.

After the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by late Vaclav Havel that ousted the communist regime, Pištěk designed the uniforms for the guards at Prague Castle, the seat of presidency.

As president, Havel awarded him a state decoration in 2000.

The Associated Press