Milos Forman: key dates

– February 18, 1932: Jan Tomas Forman is born in Caslav in the former Czechoslovakia.

– 1940: His parents, members of the resistance against the Nazis, are deported to the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps where they die.

– 1950s: Meets future Czech president Vaclav Havel at school, later enrolling at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague to study screenwriting.

– 1958-62: Married to actress Jana Brejchova.

– 1964: Marries Vera Kresadlova. They have twin boys.

– 1968: Flees Czechoslovakia just before a Soviet crackdown on the Prague Spring uprising. Moves to Paris and then New York.

– 1976: Wins his first Oscar for best director for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, set in a US psychiatric hospital.

– 1977: Naturalised as a US citizen.

– 1985: Earns second best director Oscar for his fictionalised biography of Mozart, “Amadeus”.

– 1999: Marries his third wife, screenwriter Martina Zborilova with whom he has another set of twin sons.