Croatia - International Special Reports

Film and television producer Vladimir Kraljevic symbolizes worldwide success of Croatian-Americans

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Film and television producer Vladimir Kraljevic symbolizes worldwide success of Croatian-Americans

When Vladimir Kraljevic walks into one of Zagreb's better restaurants heads turn and eyes widen in recognition. His name also lights up the society and entertainment pages of the nation's many newspapers. Mr. Kraljevic is clearly one of the country's best known American Croatians.

His odyssey from a normal Croatian boyhood through graduation from the country's naval preparatory institute then gaining first-name friendships within New York cafe society is a dramatic tale of life in the latter half of the 20th Century.

Assigned to the Yugoslavian Merchant Marine, but disillusioned with his future in communist society, young Vladimir made two efforts at jumping ship. The first, in Tampa, Florida ended him in the ship’s jail, but the second, in Marseilles, worked. In France during three years with various jobs, including learning food and cooking at Paris’ Carita Institute and taking language study at the Sorbonne, Vladimir began to meet well-placed Parisians who helped pave entry to New York City.

Now a top entertainment producer, based in Croatia, with successful activities ranging across Europe and the United States, Mr. Kraljevic is a living symbol of the old Frank Sinatra song with the lyric, "New York, New York -- if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." And, make it he did, quickly rising through the ranks of that City’s extremely competitive highest-end restaurant industry.

At one time Mr. Kraljevic was Maitre 'de in the Russian Tea Room, at the great Four Seasons Restaurant, the Hampshire House, Central Park’s Tavern On The Green and other fine establishments. In these jobs, Mr. Kralevich met top names in American society and show business, including legends like Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Lee Strasberg, Leonard Bernstein, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Michael Korda, Yves Saint Laurent, Martha Graham, Ralph Lauren, Donald and Ivana Trump, Burt Reynolds, Steven Spielberg, Milos Forman and many others.

As part of his pursuit of the American dream, Mr. Kraljevic found time for a family, and even the time and energy for his hobby of building boats – he turned out a 55-foot hand-made mahogany yacht built in cooperation with Miniford Shipyard in the Bronx, New York. After sailing for a year, Mr. Kraljevic donated the vessel to a California orphanage.

But for Vladimir Kraljevic his true passion has always been the creative media of film, television and special events. Thus, when the Director of Drama of The Croatian National Theater came looking for an American partner to help turn a captivating story, about miracles, into a Hollywood movie, Mr. Kraljevic was a natural to become one of the producers of Gospa, a feature film made in 1994. Starring Martin Sheen, Michael York and Morgan Fairchild, the film tells the story -- central to Croatia's religious passion for the Virgin Mary (particularly since 77% of the nation's population is Catholic) -- of a group of children who see Mary in the mountain shrine town of Medjugorje. The film idea was the brainchild of National Theater Director Jakov Sedlar. With Mr. Kraljevic in the driver's seat the movie was made in less than two years and premiered at Radio City Music Hall, the first European film to gain this distinction.

Mr. Kraljevich’s partner, writer-producer Susan Curry, and her volunteer staff sold nearly 6000 tickets in less than a month, with proceeds donated to New York organizations for the homeless and to the Rebuild Dubrovnik Foundation.

During this same period, Mr. Kraljevich began to collect offers to bring American ventures to Croatia, and vice-versa. Among the first ventures included bring Playboy and Cosmopolitan magazines into joint ventures providing for publication in Croatian.

In the new century, Mr.Kraljevic, with his Croatian business partner, Marija Jerbic, a former law student fluent in five languages, spends much of his time producing the nation’s single most-watched television program, MISS UNIVERSE CROATIA PAGEANT. As a measure of Croatian-American cooperation, the first celebrity guest at the Miss Universe pageant was Ivana Trump herself, the highly successful businesswoman and former wife of Donald Trump the New York developer who is co-owner with CBS television of the world-wide Miss Universe organization.

Between productions, Mr. Kraljevic devotes his energy to a variety of charitable activities and is unfailingly pleasant to his many fans who admire the way he has risen from local roots, using American know-how, and a propriety positive attitude, to make things happen in modern Croatia. Last year Mr. Kraljevic organized European premiere of the American film "On the Beach" in Dubrovnik, starring Armand Assante, Rachel Ward and Brian Brown. Close friend Assante, was part of the Dubrovnik opening activities.

The success of Mr. Kraljevic is paralleled by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Croats who left their homeland, fleeing German occupation at the beginning of World War II, fleeing the Communist government of Tito after the war, or just looking for a better economic way of life. This vast "diaspora" or leaving the homeland, always seemed to have "seeking freedom" or seeking a better economic life as its motivation. When children and grandchildren are counted, demographers from Croatia, and elsewhere, estimate that there are as many Croatians outside the country as the 4.5 million counted inside in the latest census.

The Croatian Parliament has a special committee focused on problems and opportunities of this overseas population. Like Vladimir Kraljevic the largest number of Croatians that went abroad settled in the United States, in Chicago, Cleveland, New York and California. More than a million reside in the United States and, when second and third generation Croatian-Americans are counted, their numbers mount to several millions. Canada also has a sizable population and more than half-a-million Croats went to West Germany and elsewhere in Europe, South America and Oceania.

For generations this group of Croatian expatriates sent money home providing a very significant source of the country's disposal income. That continues to this day, but now there is a new and very noticeable difference: Croatians are flocking back to their home country. Vladimir Kraljevic is a good example, but there are thousands more.

They are leaving Germany to build golf courses; they are coming home from Australia and New Zealand to join the ranks of the highly competent tourist and hospitality industry, they may been starting corrugated box plants or developing highly focused scientific and technological businesses. The manage joint ventures in billboards and media distribution, as well as innovations in computing and telecommunications.

When Croatia was a much more troubled country, these millions got out and many did very well indeed. With the new Croatia becoming a wonderful place to live and work, many are coming home, easing right back into the land they love.