Alexis Minotis

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Alexis Minotis ( Greek Αλέξης Μινωτής ), also Alexis Minotakis (Αλέξης Μινωτάκης; * August 8, 1898 or 1900 in Chania ; † November 11, 1990 in Athens ), was a Greek theater and film actor, director and head of the National Theater in Athens.

life and career

Alexis Minotakis was born as the third of ten children of an industrial clerk in Chania, Crete. When he saw his first play at the age of twelve, he decided, against the commercial family tradition, to become an actor. After finishing his military service , Minotakis joined an acting troupe in Athens in 1925. There he also met his future wife, the later Academy Award winning actress Katina Paxinou . The couple married in 1940 and both became members of the National Theater in Athens. At the National Theater, Minotakis developed into one of the most respected and successful Greek theater actors of his generation. In particular, through his portrayal of Oedipus from the classical Greek tragedies, he achieved international recognition. With a theater production of Oedipus he traveled through half a dozen countries, including Broadway . In addition to the classical Greek tragedies, he also played in plays from William Shakespeare to Henrik Ibsen to Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett . His wife Paxinou often acted as his partner in the plays.

As a film actor, Minotakis starred in only seven feature films, including only one Greek. His few films include high-profile productions such as Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Notorious (1946), in which Minotakis played the zealous butler of a Nazi sympathizer ( Claude Rains ) and his wife ( Ingrid Bergman ), and Howard Hawks ' monumental film Land of the Pharaohs (1955) , in which he represented the high priest. In the 70s and 80s there were television versions of Greek dramas and the like. a. by Sophocles , Euripides and Aeschylus in the television series To theatro tis Defteras with Minotakis in the leading roles; here he sometimes acted as a director.

Alexis Minotakis was director, actor and director of the Greek National Theater for almost four decades after his return to Greece in the 1950s. He also worked as a translator of modern English-language theater plays a. a. by Robert E. Sherwood and Eugene O'Neill .

His wife died of cancer in 1973, and he himself died of a heart attack in 1990 at the age of 90 or 92 in an Athens hospital.

Filmography

As an actor

As a director

  • 1965: Medea (TV movie)
  • 1976: Oidipous epi Kolono (TV movie)
  • 1981: Filoctitis (TV movie)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Short biography at Britannica
  2. ^ Obituary in the New York Times
  3. Alexis Minotis. Retrieved February 24, 2017 .