February 18, 1932

Milos Forman (February 18, 1932 to April 13, 2018) was the director of the smash hit Amadeus (1984) in which there were brief bits of cats .

There is a nice long article on Milos Forman at Britannica. We learn:

'Miloš Forman,....[was a]  Czech-born New Wave filmmaker known primarily for the distinctively American movies that he made after his immigration to the United States.

'Forman grew up in a small town near Prague. After his parents, Jewish professor Rudolf Forman and a Protestant housewife, died in Nazi concentration camps, he was reared by two uncles and family friends; in the 1960s he learned that his biological father was not Rudolf Forman but a Jewish architect. In the mid-1950s Forman studied at the Film Faculty of the Academy of Arts in Prague. ....

'....The first major productions that he directed, Černý Petr (1964; Black Peter) and Lásky jedné plavovlásky (1965; Loves of a Blonde), had great success both domestically and internationally—the latter received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film—and Forman was hailed as a major talent of the Czech New Wave. His early films were characterized by their examination of working-class life and their enthusiasm for a socialist lifestyle. Those elements are also evident in Hoří, má panenko (1967; The Firemen’s Ball)... When The Firemen’s Ball was banned in Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion of 1968, Forman immigrated to the United States; he became a U.S. citizen in 1975.

'Forman’s first American film was Taking Off (1971), a story about runaway teenagers and their parents. Although not a box-office success, it won the jury grand prize at the Cannes film festival. The movie was also notable for being the last of Forman’s works to incorporate his early themes. Most of his American films are also bereft of the earlier social concerns that defined his Czech films, although he clearly demonstrated his mastery of the craft of direction and ... a remarkable ability to work with actors.....

'One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) was an independent production that had been turned down by every major studio, but it catapulted Forman to the forefront of Hollywood directors. A potent adaptation of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, it starred Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, an irrepressible free spirit who cons his way from a prison work farm into a mental hospital. Against his better judgment, he enters into a war of wills with the sadistic head nurse (played by Louise Fletcher). The film became the first since It Happened One Night (1934) to win all five major Academy Awards: best picture, actor (Nicholson), actress (Fletcher), director, and screenplay (Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben)...

'Less successful was Goya’s Ghosts(2006), a costume drama starring Natalie Portman as a model for the artist Francisco de Goya (Stellan Skarsgård) and Javier Bardem as a church official who rapes her after she is unjustly imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition. ....

'In addition to his directorial efforts, Forman occasionally acted in films, including Heartburn (1986), ...' and was sometimes upstaged: