Katharine Hepburn called her 'one of the greatest actresses in the history of cinema'. She had a long love affair with Marlon Brando. You served in the Greek Communist Party. And since 2018 she was suffering from Alzheimer's

Irene Papas, 1926-2022

The day after Jean-Luc Godard ( guard ), another illustrious death hits the world of cinema: the Greek actress Irene Papas left us at the age of 96, whom the Italian public remembers above all for her interpretation of Penelope in the 1968 television drama Odyssey (in the role of Ulysses c 'was Bekim Fehmiu). Among his best-known films, The Cannons of Navarone, from 1961 (she played the resistance fighter Maria Pappadimos), Zorba the Greek from 1964 (alongside Anthony Quinn), Z- The orgy of power of 1969, directed by Costa- Gravas, which won the Oscar for best foreign film.

THE BIOGRAPHY - The actress's real name was Irene Lelekou, she was born in 1926 in the village of Chiliomodi, near Corinth, the daughter of a drama teacher and a teacher. The family moved to Athens when she was seven, and at fifteen she began studying at the capital's School of Drama. She began her career in the theater with the classics (from Shakespeare and Ibsen to Greek tragedies), and then moved to New York. For the cinema, she was noticed by the director Elia Kazan, who became her pygmalion. She became great friends with Katharine Hepburn, with whom she starred in the film The Trojan Women in 1971, and who called her: 'one of the greatest actresses in the history of cinema'. In an interview, the Papas she confirmed that she had had a love affair with Marlon Brando (she remained friends with her until his death). You were part of the Greek Communist Party. Among her latest hits, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, with Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz, shot in 2011. In 2018, she fell ill with Alzheimer's.

Source: oggi.it