The death of Greek actress Irene Pappas, unforgettable in Zorba the Greek

The death of Greek actress Irene Pappas, unforgettable in Zorba the Greek

The great Greek-born actor, unforgettable in “Zorba the Greek”, Irene Pappas died on Wednesday, September 14, at the age of 93, from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, which had plagued him since 2013.

One of the most important Greek actors of her generation, Irene Pappas died on Wednesday, September 14, at the age of 93, in the unforgettable Zorba the Greek, where she answered Anthony Quinn. release. He has been battling Alzheimer’s disease since 2013.

An actor, but also a singer

Her real name is Irene Lelekou, Irene Pappas was born in 1926 in Corinth, Greece. Hailing from a family of intellectuals, he first began working in theater before taking his first steps into cinema in 1948. The lost angels, of Nikos Tsiforos. Also a singer (she will interpret for Theodorakis, collaborate with Aphrodite’s Child or Vangelis…), the beauty first made herself known in her country, before leading a long and fruitful international career.

After passing through Italy and the peplum, we find him in Robert Wise’s La Loi de la Prairie in 1956, then on a poster for The Laws of Navarone in 1961. However, this tragic actress was better shown in the role of a widow Zorba the Greek Michael Cakoiannis (with whom he will go on tour five times), specializing primarily in the great heroines of Greek antiquity: Antigone (1961), Electra (1962) and later Helen in Les Troyans (1971) or Clytemnestra. Iphigen (1977).

In 1969, she played the role of another Helen, the wife of the deputy played by Yves Montagne in Z, Costa-Gavras’s major work that condemned the “dictatorship of the colonels” in Greece and notably won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In the same year we find her in Catherine of Aragon opposite Richard Barton and Genevieve Bujold in Anna in a Thousand Days.

During his wanderings, he traveled to Italy for Elio Petri (each for his merits, 1967), Alberto Latuada (La Bambina, 1974), Francesco Rossi (Christ stopped at the Eboli, 1979; Chronicle of Death announced, 1986) or Marco Ferrer (Banquet, television film, based on Plato’s work in 1989), belatedly finds Kakoianis (Upside Down, 1993) and participates in Anglo-Saxon productions such as Black Series for a Sleepless Night (John Landis, 1985) or Captain Correll (John). Madden, 2001), Zorba’s Crossing/Anthony Quinn In Desert Lion in 1981.

In the 1990s and 2000s, while simultaneously pursuing a career in theater and television, she became rarer on the big screen, although she began a long collaboration with the Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira: Irene Pappas directed In the Party (1996), Inquiétude (1998) and Un film parle (2003). , his last film.

Source: allocine

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