Background
Zlata Petković was the daughter of Borislav and Milica. Petković was born in Svrljig.
Zlata Petković was the daughter of Borislav and Milica. Petković was born in Svrljig.
She was Mission Yugoslavia 1971 and is best known for her role as Marija in the 1970s Yugoslav television series Povratak otpisanih. Her parents, who lived in Niš at the time, were visiting Zlata"s grandmother Nadica in the small town Svrljig when Milica went into labor. Zlata had a younger brother named Dejan (born 1957).
Her parents divorced after her mother wished to settle in Belgrade, while her father wanted to stay in his hometown of Niš.
In Belgrade, Petković signed on to a music competition for young singers. Director Milan Jelić noticed her and offered her a role in his film Bubasinter (The Bug Killer).
The film was released 19 July 1971. She later recalled "I loved music and I thought I would be a singer, then the first music competition in which I participated completely changed my life.
I was offered a movie role."
In 1969, after the music competition, journalists nominated Petković for the "Mission Bambi" competition, organized by the then-popular magazine "Chick".
Petković triumphed at the Mission Yugoslavia beauty pageant in 1971. In the British capital she met many people from the world of show business and gave an interview for the famous television network British Broadcasting Corporation. Soon she started working as a television announcer in Belgrade, where she remained until she moved to Zagreb to attend the Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb. During her time at the academy, she fell in love and had a son named Gvozden.
She graduated in 1976 and was offered the role of Marija in the television series Povratak otpisanih, which became her best-known role.
She starred in multiple films during the 1970s and 1980s. Her career slowed down in her later years but she still had several roles in popular television shows such as Selo gori, a baba se češlja.
On 22 November 2012, Petković suffered a stroke in her apartment. She was operated on 30 November, but lost her life three days later aged 58.
She was buried 6 December 2012 in Belgrade"s Novo groblje cemetery.