PAPAS IN A BRAND NEW BAG!
The Greek flavour of Monica Vitti is no more. Irene Papas dipped her toes in the acting world through Shakespeare plays and ancient Greek tragedies before turning to film in 1951. Critics noted that she epitomised “the quintessential idea of Greek beauty”, and more importantly, that she was a good actress. She achieved her greatest fame as a steely resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone and as the tormented widow in Zorba the Greek. She was also noted for her role in Z, fittingly so given her staunch opposition to the Greek military junta (which she called the “Fourth Reich”) that placed her in exile for several years. She joins Jean-Louis Trintignant and Christos Sartzetakis as notables associated with the film to die this year. Is Z to 2022 what The Mary Tyler Moore Show was to 2021? Better brace myself for writing a Costa-Gavras obit on Hogmanay then. Papas was 93 (a rare case of someone being younger than the claimed age bandied about the Internet) and a longtime Alzheimer’s sufferer, and was picked by three teams.
Irene Papas
3 September 1929 – 14 September 2022, aged 93
3 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 5 POINTS)