On July 27, 1992, Greek radio and television broke the news that Jenny Karezi had died at home after a long battle with ...

On July 27, 1992, Greek radio and television broke the news that Jenny Karezi had died at home after a long battle with cancer. She was 54 years old, and the career she left behind spanned almost four decades of Greek cinema and theater. Her real name was Evgenia Karpouzi. She was accepted into the National Theatre Drama School after performing a monologue from Moliere's Tartuffe, and by November 1954, the newspaper Ta Nea had already printed what became one of the most quoted lines in Greek cultural history: "A leading actress has been born unto us." Within a year she was on film, appearing alongside Vasilis Avlonitis and Mimis Fotopoulos in the 1955 comedy "Laterna, Ftohia kai Filotimo." The song "Garofalo st' afti," scored by Manos Hatzidakis, became so tied to her image that it remained inseparable from her name for the rest of her life. She could do comedy and drama equally well, something almost no other actress of her generation managed. Her film "Kokkina Fanaria," directed by Vassilis Georgiadis, earned Greece an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and her scene singing to a soldier through cupped hands of water became one of the most replayed images in Greek cinema history. She eventually turned away from commercial theater and light film to tackle Ibsen, Chekhov, and Albee. She performed at Epidaurus and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, stages that were not easily opened to film stars. The critic Panagiotis Timogianakis wrote in his farewell to her that she was "the only one from her generation who was welcomed with open arms at Epidaurus." Ta Nea described her death as leaving "a void that cannot be filled in Greek theater." She died at the peak of her artistic maturity, with projects still planned and roles still being written with her in mind. #JennyKarezi #GreekCinema #GreekHistory