"Here, first and foremost, is man"

Danilo "Bata" was born into the well-to-do family of Alekse Stojković, a prominent coal merchant. He grew up together with his older brother Žika, who would become famous as a publicist.

Danilo later said that his childhood began quite hard. "The Germans took away everything he had from my father. They left him only five pierced gold ducats, with which he bought horses and a cart to send me and my brother to school. When the whirlwind of war roared, father began to rise again, like a phoenix," he said.

He was intelligent, but lively and lazy, so he failed the seventh grade. However, his acting talent was apparent from an early age. At the premiere of his first play, the great actor Dobrica Milutinović sat in the audience. After the applause, he approached Danilo with glazed eyes, patted him on the shoulder and said: - You, son, became an actor while still in your mother's womb. –

Thanks to this kind of praise, Danilo planned how he would become an actor. Although it was quite difficult for him due to bad grades, he finally managed to study acting. Despite being a professor's favorite, he endured heavy criticism for the first ten years of his career. They told him that he was not talented, but dedication to his calling and hard work eventually made him a star.

His commitment to acting is also spoken of by an incident from the play of Atelje 212, the theater where he got his first real engagement and where he "settled down".

They say that in the one-act play "Audience" he played Sladek, the director of the brewery. During the forty minutes that the performance lasted, Sladek drank beer non-stop. For Danilo, this meant that he had to empty more than seventeen bottles. Bata always insisted on the authenticity of his roles, so even on this occasion he refused to drink soda during the performance.

During each Bata performance, he would drink almost seventeen bottles of beer. After he bowed to the audience, smiling and happy because of his "excellent performance", he would jump into a nearby cafe for another "travel" vinjak.

Danilo achieved his greatest roles during the eighties of the last century. At that time, he starred in cult Yugoslav comedies such as "Marathonci run the lap of honor", "Who sings there" and "Balkan spy".

Having played Laki, Brka, Ilija Čvorović, Deda and many other roles, Danilo became a synonym for laughter, and some of his unforgettable jumps are still remembered today.

- Messi, Messi, nothing will hurt you! - from the movie "Deceptive Summer '68" and - Well, the switchboard wants to make a mistake once, but not a hundred times, listen mate, maybe you got the wrong number, but you got the one you were looking for. – from "Balkan Spy", some are more famous.

His attempt at telling jokes in the movie "Let's Go" is also unforgettable.

- Now I'm going to tell you a joke. There were once, on one plane, one Englishman, one Bulgarian and a Frenchman, and one Serbian Pera. Now, I, um, I don't know how it all worked out, only in the end, the Serb was the smartest and outsmarted everyone. –

After a decade of successful career, the great actor fell ill with lung cancer. But serious illness did not separate him from the theater. During the last months, despite the doctor's opposition, he played in the play "Correspondence". Although he played it barely standing on his feet, he declared after the performance: - For a moment, I felt as if I had recovered! –

The legendary Bata played more than eighty theater roles, shot about seventy films and played in about fifty television works.

However, he never got the desired role. Namely, the ideal role for Danilo was the one in which - I eat in various ways, somewhere at the bottom of the scene, so as not to say a word. I'm looking for some kind of drama with a role like that, some drama that is not an occasion for the theater. - he told TV News.

The respected actor was also a lover of folk songs, and he said about this: - There is sevdah in me... The real desperadoes are smiling people. –