And who is not in love with the beautiful Greek Penelope. With that carved Mediterranean face that for fidelity to her love knitted and woven fabrics for 20 years. Because such is love. She survived the years with her strength. And if Greek literature has brought us images of women like Helena who sparked a love affair, Penelope’s story has fascinated us with her fidelity. Performed by one of the most famous Greek artists, a legend named Irene Papas this role is engraved in the history of the world.
This beautiful, strong female figure, with those deep eyes that show human suffering and beauty is deeply engraved in the memory of every man who knew the morals of life through cinema. Who recognized the greatness and purity of a love in an epochal film such as Odysseus.
And a role interpreted with greatness remains in the lives of lives and turns into myths. Such is Irene Papas.
Her recent statements, of this great and unrepeatable cinema diva who with her career turned into a world legend really impress. “I can not leave this world and not tell the truth that I am Albanian,” said the cinema diva.
Her real name is Irene Leleku and her father’s origin was Albanian. “My mother was from Epirus and my father from Albania. “He was a literature teacher and hated the priests,” the diva said in her IDM biography.
A statement that has really shocked the whole of Greece because she is one of the greatest heroines of Greek cinema, an idol of this nation but that confirms even more the conviction that the Albanians in Greece are really an important factor and have contributed in all walks of life. The fact that she is arvanitase is also confirmed by important historians of the field.
Irene Papas managed to realize a brilliant career. She was born on September 3, 1926 and starred in 70 films with a career that spanned more than five decades.
Her biography states that her childhood name is Irene Leleku and she was born in Corinth, Greece and her father was a teacher of classical drama.
With an incomparable beauty, with that portrait of her carved like a natural dive, she would stand out in the eyes of Elia Kazan, immediately achieving fame in Greece and then be chosen as the protagonist in the films “The Guns Navarone” (1961) and “Greek Zorba” (1964), but also in major films written about famous Greek stories.
So she would star in the films “Helen The Women Troje” (1971) with the famous actress Katharine Hepburn, Clytemnestra in Ifigenia (1977), and the episodes “Eponymous in Antigone” (1961) and “Electra” (1962). Papas also appeared as Catherine of Aragon in “Anne of the Thousand Days,” opposite Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold.
In 1976, she starred in the film “Muhammad, the Messenger of God” (known as the Message) about the origins of Islam and the message of Muhammad.
Since starting her career as a singer in 1978, Papas has collaborated with composer Vangelis, in an electronic rendition of eight Greek folk songs, released as a record called “Odes”. They collaborated again later in 1986 on “Rapsodies”, an electronic interpretation of seven Byzantine liturgical hymns.
In 1982, she appeared in the movie “Desert Lion”, along with the great actor Anthony Quinn. But his biggest and most famous role remains that of “Odyssey” where he performed alongside the famous Albanian actor Bekim Fehmiu.
For all her long career and worldwide fame, Irene never won the coveted Oscar, which she is disappointed with.
Her beliefs are said to have been communist and she has been a member of the Greek Communist Party and an ardent friend of Prime Minister Papandreou.
Irene will be remembered in the history of Greece not only for her roles sculpted in Greek and world cinema but above all for her performances of Greek music, where the most famous is “Zorba”.
As for her private life, it is said that she was the wife of Alkisa Papasi and currently lives in Italy. The actress has been rumored for her love affair with the great actor Marlon Brando. (The materials referred to the data published by Beqir Sina, New York.