Stathis Giallelis

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Stathis Giallelis ( Greek Στάθης Γιαλλελής , born January 21, 1941 ) is a Greek actor . From the beginning of the 1960s to the 1980s he appeared in several international film and television productions. He gained fame primarily through his first film role in Elia Kazan's feature film The Unconquerable (1963).

biography

Childhood and discovery through Elia Kazan

Stathis Giallelis was born in Greece in 1941 as the only son into a family with four daughters. His father was a leftist and died during the Greek Civil War . Seriously wounded by right-wing opponents, Giallelis' father died only three days later, during which he was being cared for by his son. At the age of 15 he became head of his family in this way.

In the early 1960s, Giallelis was discovered for the film by Elia Kazan . The two-time Oscar- winning director was working on the cinematic implementation of his script America, America . When the funding ran out, Kazan had to put the project aside. Only the revision of the script for a novel and its publication in 1962 aroused interest and ensured that he could make the film. The book tells of the painful odyssey of a young Greek from Anatolia , who at the turn of the century fled the poverty of his village homeland and the repression to America, the promised dreamland. The novel is based on stories and descriptions by Kazan's uncle, who also emigrated from Greece to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

After Kazan had successfully entrusted the lead role to the unknown Warren Beatty in his last feature film, Fever im Blut (1961) , he hosted auditions for the part of Stavros in New York , Hollywood , France and England . "I looked everywhere ... but everyone I saw looked too much like an actor," Kazan said years later in an interview. You were too handsome and too professional for the director. In Athens , Kazan's attention was finally drawn to Stathis Giallelis, who was sweeping the floors in a producer's office. He involved the young man, who had neither acting training nor knowledge of English, in a conversation and learned about the background of Giallelis, including the intensive care he had given his terminally ill father.

The episode from Giallelis' past had left a “stain” on the boy , according to Kazan : “I think this story captured me for him. I knew he had been through hardship and I understood it well, ” said Kazan. The director praised his discovery as "the real thing" . With the same words the director had also died young James Dean titled, which he in East of Eden had helped to popularity, although Kazan in his autobiography into perspective later his statement and Giallelis compared to Dean as "a good boy" dub should . Kazan got to know Giallelis as a young "rooster" who was in the favor of his mother and sisters, by whom he was looked after in every way. The indolence he encouraged should stand in his way, especially when trying to learn English.

Roll preparation and Golden Globe win

To prepare for the role of Stavros, Kazan brought his leading actor to New York, where he put a language teacher at his side and found a friend with whom he could speak English all day. The shooting for America, America , which was to appear in Germany under the title The Unconquerable , took place entirely in the Greek Alfa studios in Athens. Kazan was responsible for the script as well as the direction and production after the experienced producers Kenneth Hyman and Ray Stark left the film project. The engagement of Giallelis in the lead role is seen as a possible reason. At the same time, the Greek was also given a small role in Nikos Koundouros ' award-winning drama Young Aphrodites , which was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in June 1963 before The Unconquerables were released.

The Indomitable celebrated its premiere in December 1963 in New York. In theopinion of the trade press, thealmost three-hour black - and - white film was considered Kazan's most personal filmalongside Das Arrangement (1969), but it flopped at the box office. Nevertheless, the large-scale epic wasnominatedfor an Oscar in four categoriesand won the award for the best equipment. The still unknown Stathis Giallelis also received praise from the critics, "whose face that is as hearty as it is mercilessly indomitable" would be remembered according to contemporary West German criticism. For the part of Stavros, who does notshy awayfrom murder, dowry hunting or working as a gigolo to get closer to his dream destination America, the amateur actor was giventhe rare honor of a double nominationat the1964 Golden Globe Awards . Nominated alongside well-known professional colleagues such as Marlon Brando ( The Ugly American ) or Paul Newman ( The Wildest Among Thousand ) , he lost out in the category of Best Actor - Drama compared to the later Oscar winner Sidney Poitier ( Lilies on the Field ) . In the award of the award for the best young actor , Giallelis finally prevailed together with Albert Finney ( Tom Jones - Between Bed and Gallows ), among others.

End of the film career

Although Kazan predicted a great career for his leading actor, according to the director Giallelis' poor knowledge of English subsequently damaged the film. Using total attitudes was one way that Kazan attempted to mask this deficiency. "He was an admirable boy and worked heroically with whatever talent he had, but it was undoubtedly a loss to the film," Kazan said decades later. The Greek did not take on roles in American feature film productions until 1966. In Melville Shavelson's The Shadow of the Giant , about Israel becoming a state , he slipped into the role of the young Israeli commander Ram Oren alongside Kirk Douglas , Senta Berger and Yul Brynner . In the same year he stood next to Janet Margolin in Leopoldo Torre Nilsson's drama El ojo de la cerradura in the leading role of an immature terrorist in front of the camera. Neither with these appearances nor with Silvio Narizzano's Western Inferno on the River , Giallelis was able to build on the success of The Unconquerables and in the following years he was only sporadically in international feature film productions under directors such as Časlav Damjanović (Signal on green) or Jules Dassin (The Rehearsal ) to see.

Gialleli's last major film role he completed in Hall Bartlett's literary film adaptation The Children of Sanchez (1978), in which a large Mexican family threatens to break up because of the hard-heartedness of the father (played by Anthony Quinn ). The actor's career ended in the early 1980s with the four-hour Greek television series Panagulis Zei , in which he portrayed the famous resistance fighter Alekos Panagoulis , and the Greek feature film To tragoudi tis epistrofis (1983).

Filmography

  • 1963: Young Aphrodites (Mikres Afrodites)
  • 1963: The Unbreakable (America, America)
  • 1966: Cast A Giant Shadow (Cast a Giant Shadow)
  • 1966: El ojo de la cerradura
  • 1968: Inferno on the River (Blue)
  • 1970: signal on green (Rekvijem)
  • 1973: The Last Train to Berlin
  • 1974: The Rehearsal
  • 1976: Happy Day
  • 1978: The Children of Sanchez
  • 1980: Panagulis Zei (TV series)
  • 1983: To tragoudi tis epistrofis

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Profile of Stathis Giallelis in the Internet Movie Database (accessed June 27, 2009)
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h cf. Schickel, Richard: Elia Kazan: a biography . New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2005. - ISBN 978-0-06-019579-3 . Pp. 392-393
  3. ↑ a b c d cf. Kazan, Elia; Young, Jeff: Kazan: the master director discusses his films: interviews with Elia Kazan . New York: Newmarket Press, 1999.- ISBN 1-55704-338-8 . P. 271
  4. ↑ cf. Kazan, Elijah . In: The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives . Ed. Arnold Markoe, Karen Markoe, and Kenneth T. Jackson. Vol. 7: 2003-2005. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons , 2007 (accessed via Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, Mich .: Gale, 2009)
  5. ↑ a b c cf. The indomitable . In: film-dienst 45/1964 (accessed on June 27 via Munzinger archive )
  6. ↑ cf. The indomitable . In: The large TV feature film film lexicon (CD-ROM). Directmedia Publ., 2006. - ISBN 978-3-89853-036-1
  7. ↑ cf. Elia Kazan . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 49/2003 of November 24, 2003; supplemented by news from the MA journal up to week 26/2007 (accessed on June 27, 2009 via Munzinger archive )
  8. ↑ cf. Hairapetian, Marc: Beyond the golden years - Interview with Elia Kazan in the daily newspaper , February 23, 1996, p. 23
personal data
SURNAME Giallelis, Stathis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Greece