Irene Papas: goodbye to the actress of ‘Zorba the Greek’ and ‘Odyssey’

In the collective imagination of the Italians, Irene Papas will forever remain the legendary Penelope, wife of Ulysses (Bekim Fehmiu), in the RAI television blockbuster “Odissea” (1968) by director Franco Rossi. In the history of cinema, with her typically Mediterranean beauty and strong temperament, the great Greek actress excelled in the acting of characters of classical tragedy starting in the Sixties the collaboration, fundamental and lasting in her career, with the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis interpreting “Elettra” (1962), for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival; collaboration then continued with “Zorba the Greek” (1964), alongside Anthony Quinn, who made her a diva of international importance, and then with “Le troiane” (1971) and “Ifigenia” (1977). Irene Papas died at the age of 96 in Chiliomodi, near Corinth, where she was born on 3 September 1926 with the real name of Irene Lelekou, in a family of teachers from which she learned a love for Greek dramas. In 1947 she married the director and actor Alkis Papas (1922-2018), from whom she divorced in 1951, but she always kept his surname for her career. In 2018 it was announced that she Papas had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for five years. Since then she has lived away from the public eye. After attending the Royal School of Dramatic Art in Athens, the actress made her debut as a singer and dancer in variety at a very young age, later dedicating herself to classical theater. Her debut as a film actress came with the film by Frixos Iliades “The Dead City” (1951), in Greece, where she established herself at a young age. In the 1950s, Irene Papas arrived in Italy and was employed at Cinecittà in supporting roles in films in which she was valued for her beauty rather than for her talent: among others, in 1953 “Le infideli” by Steno and Mario Monicelli and “Vortice “by Raffaello Matarazzo (1953), in 1954” Theodora, empress of Byzantium “by Riccardo Freda and” Attila “by Pietro Francisci. The brief Hollywood experience with the films “The Law of the Halter” (1956) by Robert Wise and “The Adventures of the Three Musketeers” (1957) by Joseph Lerner (1957) introduced her to international cinema, making her conquer an important role in John Lee Thompson’s war film “The Guns of Navarone” (1961), with an all-star cast of Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker and Anthony Quayle. Returning to acting in Greece, she began to play female roles fully embodying the power of ancient tragedy: “Antigone” (1961) by Yorgos Javellas (1961) and especially “Elettra” (1962) by Michael Cacoyannis. And it was Cacoyannis who chose Irene Papas for the part that would make her a legendary diva on the big screen: that of the widow in “Zorba the Greek” (1964), a film based on the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis, starring Anthony Quinn. main, the soundtrack composed by Mikīs Theodōrakīs and the presence of the poem sirtaki, the ‘Dance of Zorba’, which following its fame in Greece became a popular dance. The film won three Oscars. Still directed by Cacoyannis it was Helen of Troy in “Le Troiane” (1971) – alongside Katharine Hepburn (Ecuba) and Vanessa Redgrave (Andromaca) – and Clytemnestra in “Ifigenia” (1977). Previously, in “Z – The orgy of power” (1969) by the Greek director Costantin Costa-Gavras, on the birth of the colonels’ regime in Greece, she was memorable in the role of Hélène, the widow of the slain political activist, the MP played by Yves Montand. Among the best interpretations of her are considered: “To each one of her” (1967) by Elio Petri; Penelope in “Odissea” (1968), Franco Rossi’s television drama, which made her very popular in Italy, co-produced by Rai with France, Yugoslavia and West Germany; Queen Catherine of Aragon in “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969) by Charles Jarrot; Moustapha Akkad’s “The Message” (1976); Giulia in “Christ stopped at Eboli” (1979) by Francesco Rosi; “The Lion of the Desert” (1980) also by Akkad; the grandmother in “Erendira” (1983) by Ruy Guerra, from the book by Gabriel García Márquez. Often an interpreter of figures from classical tragedy, in films with a more modern setting, Papas strongly expressed pain, vital energy, as in ” Chronicle of a Death Foretold “(1987) by Rosi, from the novel by García Márquez,” High Season “(1987) by Claire Peploe,” Island “(1989) by Paul Cox. He also played Abdelahfidh Boussida’s “Ballade pour un roi” (1991), “Party” (1996) and “Inquietudine” (1998) by Manoel de Oliveira, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” (2001) by John Madden, “Un spoken film “(2003) again by Oliveira. “Ecuba-Il film” (2004) by Giuliana Berlinguer was the last interpretation of her in the cinema. Her theatrical activity is remarkable and always intense, particularly in Athens, as interpreter of the major Greek classical tragedies, in Europe and in the United States. Her career has been studded with numerous awards, up to the Golden Lion for her career in 2009 at the Venice Film Festival. In 1962 at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival she was proclaimed best actress for “Electra” and for the same film she was awarded by the Union of Greek Film Critics. In 1971 she was awarded the National Board of Review for Best Actress for “The Trojan Women”. In 1993 she received the Distinguished Achievement Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) and the Flaiano Lifetime Achievement Award for the Theater Section at the Hamptons International Film Festival, Other Lifetime Achievement Awards came in 2000 in Madrid from the National Arts Institution and the International Festival Women’s Films w in 2002 by the Woman of Europe Award. In 2001 the “La Sapienza” University of Rome awarded the actress an honorary degree in arts and letters. Her private life was marked by her marriage at 21 to director Alkis Papas: the two divorced only four years later, in 1951. The actress remarried in 1957 with the film producer José Kohn even if the marriage was later canceled. . Perhaps the most fascinating chapter in Papas’ love life comes in 1954. It is the year that the actress met the man she would later define the love of her in her life, when she began dating Marlon Brando. . “Since then I have never loved a man as I have loved Marlon. He has been the great passion of my life, absolutely the man I cared about the most and also the one I esteemed most, two things that are generally difficult to reconcile” , declared Papas of the legendary actor of “The Godfather”. After their brief relationship, the two remained “dear friends” until her end. For a stretch of her life, she was very close friends with Katharine Hepburn, with whom she starred in “The Trojan Women” in 1971. Hepburn once said that Irene was “one of the best actresses in the history of cinema”. (by Paolo Martini)