As his parents died in the nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz Jan Tomás became an orphan very early on. Later he studied direction at the School of Cinema in Prague. In his Czechoslovakian films Black Peter, The Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen's Ball, he created his own style of comedy. During the invasion of his country by the troops of the Warsaw pact in the summer of 1968 to stop the Prague spring, he left Europe for the United States. In spite of the difficulties he filmed there Taking Off and achieved his fame later with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest adapted from the novel of Ken Kesey and which not only won five Oscars including one for direction. Other important films of Milos Forman were the musical Hair and certainly his biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amadeus, which won eight Oscars.
His sons, Andrew and James, were named after Andy Kaufman and Jim Carrey. Carrey portrays Kaufman in Forman's film, Man on the Moon. Became US citizen in 1975. Awarded fouth annual John Huston Award for Artists Rights by the Artists Rights Foundation. [1997] Father of twin brothers Matej Forman & Petr Forman. First name is pronounced "Mee-losh." Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 349-356. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988. Brother of Pavel Forman. He directed 8 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, Howard E. Rollins Jr., Elizabeth McGovern, F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce and Woody Harrelson. Nicholson, Fletcher and Abraham won Oscars for their performances in one of Forman's movies. Is currently director of Columbia University's film division. He takes sabbatical years for filmmaking. President of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972 His top ten films of all time are: City Lights: A Comedy Romance in Pantomime, Citizen Kane, Children of Paradise, Miracle in Milan, Giant, The Godfather, Amarcord, American Graffiti, The Deer Hunter and Raging Bull. [Source: "Sight and Sound"]. He was hand-picked by Michael Crichton to direct Disclosure (1994) but subsequently left the project due to creative differences with Crichton. He was due to have directed a film called Hell Camp in the early 1990s, from an original screenplay he had written with Adam Davidson. The film, to have been shot in New York and Tokyo, was to have starred Dylan Walsh and centred on two young Americans travelling to Japan and learning Japanese discipline and fighting spirit at a military-style camp. One falls in love with a Japanese girl while the other becomes a sumo wrestler. Shooting was to have started in November 1991 for a Christmas 1992 release but the film was cancelled when the Sumo Association of Japan objected to the script's allegedly unflattering portrayal of the sport. TriStar, the film's backers, offered to support Forman if he wanted to change the script or try to make the film without the cooperation of the Sumo Association but the director felt that the association's cooperation was needed for the film's authenticity in the provision of stadiums and professional sumo wrestlers.