Irene Papas was one of the most famous Greek actresses abroad, having starred in more than 50 films during her career, which spanned six decades.

On the screen, she shared the poster with Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, James Cagney and Jon Voigt in particular.

Born on September 3, 1929 in a village in the Peloponnese, Chiliomodi, near Corinth, Irène Lelekou, who will become known as Papas, comes from a family of teachers.

Endowed with a deep voice, a piercing gaze and a sculpted face as if taken from Greek Antiquity, Irène Papas began performing at the age of 15 in local cultural events before entering the National Theater Academy in Athens.

In 1948, she made her debut in the Greek film "Lost Angels" and four years later began her international career with "Dead City", the first Greek film to be presented at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film adaptations of Antigone and Electra by Sophocles, in which she played the main role, reinforced her growing notoriety.

In 1961 "The Guns of Navarone" by J. Lee Thompson, in which she played alongside Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, was one of the most significant roles of her career.

She will again have Anthony Quinn as a partner in 1964 in the film "Zorba the Greek" by Michel Cacoyannis, an adaptation of the homonymous novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.

"Not looking for a career"

"I left Greece to find out where the best acting was. I wanted to learn. I wasn't looking for a career," she told public broadcaster ERT in 2002.

In 1969, she played the widow of Grigoris Lambrakis, an assassinated left-wing Greek deputy, one of the key roles in the Oscar-winning film "Z" by Costa-Gavras.

In 2001, she had a small role in John Madden's war film "Captain Corelli" alongside Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.

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Irène Papas has received numerous awards, including that of best actress in 1961 at the Berlin Festival and a golden lion in Venice rewarding her entire career.

The actress was very popular in Italy, where she regularly appeared in films and television series.

She held her last role there in 2004.

A singer in her youth, Irène Papas collaborated in the 1970s and 1980s with Vangelis, Demis Roussos and Mikis Theodorakis, who composed the music for the film "Zorba le Grec", which became famous.

Irène Papas will admit during her career to have had difficulty reconciling the incarnation of her characters on the screen and her own person.

"Fame has brought me nothing"

"Fame hasn't brought me anything," she said in an interview with Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia in 2003.

"On the contrary, it destroyed my privacy. Because the person who was going to approach me, let's say sexually, had already fallen in love with my image".

Unlike her characters with the character of fires on the screen, Irène Papas said of herself that she was "cowardly" and that she had turned to the theater to overcome her shyness.

In 2004, she revealed that she had a long secret love affair with Marlon Brando in the 1950s. "We had a love affair. Let's call it a long relationship," she told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

At 18, she married her theater teacher Alkis Papas.

They had no children and soon divorced, but she kept her husband's name.

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"Before I could not love or raise (a child). Now I would have liked to have one to continue living," she told Eleftherotypia.

During the last years of her life, Irène Papas lived near the Acropolis, where her niece took care of her while she suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

© 2022 AFP