[1] His father Antonín Nový, a member of the Prague Fire Brigade, wanted him to become a typographer, but Oldřich showed passion for theatre from a young age.

There he attempted to develop the "musical comedy" genre and to combine spoken word with traditional operetta style into a new and modern expression.

[3] Operetta and the "musical comedy" were considered a bourgeois anachronism in that time and the communist régime banned also the film productions which weren't in compliance with the socialist realism.

[3] In Karlín he finally managed to stage the classical operetta repertoire (Polish Blood, Orpheus in the Underworld, Die Fledermaus, Mamzelle Nitouche and Rose-Marie).

His last theatre role was a title character of the play "Hodinový hoteliér" by Pavel Landovský, directed by Evald Schorm.

At first he acted in somewhat trivial comedies, and his first promising performance was the small role of a reticent valet in the film adaptation of the play Velbloud uchem jehly by Hugo Haas and Otakar Vávra.

In 1949 Mac Frič made a brilliant parody of pre-war kitsch films – Pytlákova schovanka aneb Šlechetný milionář.

In the 1950s Nový also conformed with the new régime and occasionally appeared in the comedies influenced by socialist realism, such as Slovo dělá ženu (1952) and Hudba z Marsu (1955).