Czech actor Pavel Landovsky dies at 78

(AP) — Pavel Landovsky, a Czech actor, anti-communist dissident and a friend of late president and playwright Vaclav Havel, has died.

Landovsky, 78, died Friday of a heart attack, his family announced to the national CTK news agency on Saturday.

Landovsky appeared in numerous movies, including "Closely Watched Trains," the Academy Award winner for the best foreign language film in 1967.

Many remember him for his role of a brewery official in Havel's play "Audience." In a famed 1976 recording he made with Havel, Landovsky tries to persuade a brewer worker-dissident to spy on himself.

After Landovsky signed the Charter 77 human rights manifesto, he faced communist persecution and emigrated to Austria. He returned home after the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by Havel ousted the communist regime.