A well-known Greek actor, director, and politician named Kostas Kazakos passed away on Tuesday in Athens. He had reached the age of 87.
Kazakos, who was born on May 29, 1935, in Pyrgos, Ilia, attended the “Theatro Technis” Drama School where Carolos Koun oversaw his studies. In 1957, he made his stage debut. Since then, he has worked with numerous theatre companies.
Additionally, he appeared in several movies in supporting parts.
But his big break came in 1967, when he was given the lead role in the movie “o” (1967), opposite the well-known actress Tzeni Karezi.
Karezi, whom he married, passed away at the age of sixty in 1992 after a twenty-four year marriage. They had a son together, appeared in several films together, and were adored and esteemed actors. Just one year after the Greek junta instituted a military dictatorship, the pair was married in 1968.
At a period when performers, politicians, and artists who expressed left-leaning political opinions or produced works of art that defied the dictatorship’s severely rigid social doctrine risked being exiled, tortured, or worse, Kazakos and Karezi stood up against the junta.
Kazakos and Karezi were imprisoned by the military junta
After performing a play called Our Giant Circus that lampooned the junta in 1973, the couple was put in prison. This was just one year before the junta was overthrown.
In 1997, Kazakos married the actress Jenny Jolia and had three children, which was five years after Karezi’s passing. The couple also had a daughter, who passed away in June 1999 at the age of just eight months.
He kept acting on stage after Karezi passed away, garnering praise for his performance in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
He was chosen to serve in the Greek Parliament in 2007 as a candidate for the Communist Party of Greece. In 2009, he won reelection.