Constantin Tănase

An adequate but unexceptional student (although he did apparently learn good German), his first exposure to the stage was by attending plays at "Pârjoala" garden, where he saw popular theater, including actors such as Zaharia Burienescu and I.D.

This inspired him to start an amateur theater group among his friends; they worked up scenes from the plays Meșterul Manole, Căpitanul Valter Mărăcineanu, and Constantin Brâncoveanu; their closest thing to a stage was a barn.

Despite his wish to become an actor, at his parents behest he enrolled in the Military School at Iași, but his rebellious behavior there quickly got him booted out.

He headed to Brăila, where he briefly attended the Nicolae Bălcescu High School, but after a few weeks he dropped out due to lack of funds.

Tănase promptly developed his own style of teaching, bringing music and gymnastics to a central role, which drew new students to the school.

Over the course of 20 years, he would establish a tradition of humorous cabaret/revue theater that still continues in Romania today, most notably at the "Constantin Tănase" Revue Theatre, the former home of "Cărăbuș" at 33-35 Calea Victoriei in the heart of Bucharest.

Tănase was still performing in Bucharest a year after the arrival of the Russians, and was killed for satirizing the Red Army soldiers' habit of "requisitioning" all personal property in sight, in particular of taking people's watches, demanding them by saying, "Davai ceas" (davai – Russian for "Give me", and ceas – Romanian for "watch").

However, even with Romania's increased independence from the Soviet Union, it was politically impossible to show the Red Army as responsible for his death; in the screenplay, only the conflict with the Iron Guard is illustrated, repeatedly irritating them with antifascist satire.