Greek actress Irene Papas, star of ‘Zorba the Greek’, dies at 93

Greek actress Irene Papas, famous for her spirited appearances in internationally acclaimed films like The Cannons of Navarone and Zorba the Greekdied at the age of 93, the Greek Ministry of Culture announced on Wednesday September 14.

Irene Papas”personified Greek beauty on screen and on stage“, said in a press release the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni. According to the Greek state news agency ANA, Irene Papas died earlier in the day on Wednesday. The cause of her death was not known in the press. Irene Papas’ health had been fragile for some time.

Irène Papas in an excerpt from the film “Zorba the Greek” (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtsLDQj-c2Y

One of the best-known Greek actresses abroad alongside Mélina Mercouri, Irène Papas starred in some sixty films during her career, which spanned six decades, and in particular in the adaptations of ancient tragedies (Antigone, Electra, Iphignenia…)

Born in 1929 near Corinth into a family of teachers, Irène Papas broke through on the international scene with DeadCitythe first Greek film presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952. The cannons of Navarone in 1961, in which she starred alongside Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn as a dark-eyed Greek guerrilla, was a career highlight.

She then toured with filmmakers like Costa Gavras (Z), Michel Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek), Francesco Rosi (Christ stopped at Eboli), John Landis (Black series for an all-nighter) and Manoel de Oliveira (Party, Worry…) and she shared the bill with renowned comedians like Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, James Cagney and Jon Voigt. “Ordinary actors find it hard to share the screen with her“, wrote in 1969 the film critic Roger Ebert.

Committed politically, in particular against the dictatorship of the colonels in Greece, Irène Papas was forced into exile (in Italy then in the United States) when the military junta took power in her country in 1967, and returned there at the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. A member of the Greek Communist Party, banned until 1974, she was also close to the Social Democrat Andreas Papandreou, founder of the PASOK party.

Irène Papas has received numerous awards, including Best Actress in 1961 at the Berlin Film Festival and a Golden Lion in Venice in 2009 for her entire career. She was popular in Italy, where she appeared regularly in films and television series, including her last role in 2004.