Irene Papas, a living Caryatid

    Irene Papas (or Pappas) (Greek: Ειρήνη Παππά, romanized: Eiríni Pappá; born 3 September 1929)
is a retired Greek actress and singer, who has starred in over 70 films in a career spanning more than 50 years. She became famous in Greece, and then an international star of feature films such as The Guns of Navarone and Zorba the Greek. She was a powerful presence as a Greek heroine in films including The Trojan Women and Iphigenia. She played the eponymous parts in Antigone (1961) and Electra (1962).
    Papas won Best Actress awards in 1961 at the Berlin International Film Festival for Antigone and in 1971 from the National Board of Review for The Trojan Women. She received career awards in 1993, the Golden Arrow Award at Hamptons International Film Festival, and in 2009, the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale.

Her actual name was Irene Lelekou, or Rhinula (LIttle Irene). She was born on September 3, 1926, in a village that had nothing to do with everything that would happen in her life. In the small mountainous Khiliomodi, her first cry was heard. Her parents ofwere teachers and suffered a lot during the first half of the 20th century.

She is their youngest child and it is perfectly reasonable for them to grow up her with fairy tales, ancient myths and freedom of spirit. Her grandmother and mother are always by her side, to take her further into the wonderful world they created with their stories. The women who taught her the meaning of fairy tales and living art through the brushes of painting. Her father taught her to read the ancient Greek philosophers, since he was a more spiritual man, who admired Goethe.

Her summers were spent in nature, and the winters in Khiliomodi. She used to join trips to Metochi, climbs, explorations. Her father always believed that women were equal to men and so raised his daughters.

Papas began her acting career in variety and traditional theatre, in plays by Ibsen, Shakespeare, and classical Greek tragedy, before moving into film in 1951.[3] Later in her career, she took the eponymous role of Medea in a 1973 production of Euripides's play. Reviewing the production in The New York Times, Clive Barnes described heras a "very fine, controlled Medea", smouldering with a "carefully dampened passion", constantly fierce. Walter Kerr also praised Papas's Medea; both Barnes and Kerr saw in her portrayal what Barnes called "her unrelenting determination and unwavering desire for justice".[15] Albert Bermel considered Papas's rendering of Medea as a sympathetic woman a triumph of acting.

Papas debuted in American film with a bit part in the B-movie The Man from Cairo (1953); her next American film was a much larger role as Jocasta Constantine, alongside James Cagney, in the Western Tribute to a Bad Man (1956). She was discovered by Elia Kazan in Greece, where she achieved widespread fame. She then starred in internationally renowned films such as The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Zorba the Greek (1964), and critically acclaimed films such as Z (1969), where her political activist's widow has been called "indelible". She was a leading figure in cinematic transcriptions of ancient tragedy, portraying Helen in The Trojan Women (1971) opposite Katharine Hepburn, Clytemnestra in Iphigenia (1977), and the eponymous parts in Antigone (1961) and Electra (1962), where her portrayal of the "doomed heroine" is described as "outstanding". She appeared as Catherine of Aragon in Anne of the Thousand Days, opposite Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold in 1969. In 1976, she starred in Mohammad, Messenger of God about the origin of Islam. In 1982, she appeared in Lion of the Desert, together with Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, and John Gielgud. One of her last film appearances was in Captain Corelli's Mandolin in 2001.

The woman who achieved the Ph. D. title at the University of Rome, in an interview spoke forher father, saying: "I was taught disrespect by my father. He taught me that there is only one aristocracy, of spirit. There are no gentlemen and official, but people. He taught me that respect undermines me, while love lifts me up. "