“Culturescope” pays tribute to Irene Papas

Majestic, stately, dynamic; Irene Papas was the personification of Greek beauty on cinema screens and on the stage, an international star who radiated Greekness.

Watch the special tribute here: CULTURESCOPE TRIBUTE
Visit the Culturescope website: www.culturescope.eu

Born Eirini Lelekou in Chiliomodi, Greece in 1929, and raised in Athens, Papas starred in more than 70 films during her storied 50-year career. Her breakout role came in the 1961 war film “The Guns of Navarone” alongside the likes of Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn. She played a World War II resistance fighter who made the difficult decision to shoot an unarmed woman because she was working with the Nazis.

Papas famously starred in the 1964 smash-hit “Zorba the Greek,” also starring Anthony Quinn, in which she played a Greek widow who is stoned by her fellow villagers for laying with the “wrong man.” She also played the memorable Drosoula in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001).

Along with starring on the big screen, Papas became famous on Broadway for her roles in iconic Greek tragedies. In 1971, she won the National Board of Review’s best actress award for her role as “Helen of Troy in “The Trojan Women” alongside Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave.

She was also a talented singer, notably collaborating with late composer Vangelis on “Odes” in 1979.

Irene Papas was a lifelong liberal and had strong political views about her country. In 1967, when the Greek military junta first came to power, she called for a “cultural boycott” against the “Fourth Reich.” Her vehement public opposition to the regime meant that when the junta consolidated its power in 1967, Papas was sent into exile. She lived in Italy and New York during the Greek military dictatorship before she was able to return to Greece in 1974.

Her final screen appearances included “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin,” in which she played Drosoula, the formidable mother of Mandras, played by Christian Bale, and “Um Filme Falado,” Manoel de Oliveira’s 2003 meditation on civilization, in which she portrayed a privileged actress sailing the Mediterranean.

She was married twice but had a steamy affair with Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando and referred to him in an interview with an Italian newspaper as “the greatest passion of her life.”

Simple, archaic, Doric in figure, Irene Papas was undoubtedly “an incredible Greek international film star,” and her “image is a timeless imprint of Greek female beauty.”