After receiving a degree in aesthetics and comparative literature from Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, he studied theatre sciences at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU), where he met his future wife Jarmila Hrubešová – who would later go on to be the long-time head of the Theatre Institute’s library and documents department. In 1952, after having completed his studies, he was sentenced for participating in an anti-government student group. He did his military service with the army work brigades. He later worked as editor-in-chief at DILIA, as a night watchman, in the Theatre Institute’s documents department, at the Office for the Study of the History of Czech Theatre, in the National Theatre’s archives and at its PR department. In 1991, he was made the director of the National Theatre, a function he held for two years.

His son Ondřej Černý (* 1962) is a theatre critic and translator, and was the director of the Theatre Institute in 1996–2007 and of the National Theatre in 2007–2012.