Nikos Kalogeropoulos, the distinguished Greek actor, director, screenwriter and songwriter, has died at the age of 74.
Born in 1952 in Filiatra, Messinia, Kalogeropoulos studied at the Kostis Michailidis theatre school in Athens. He made his stage debut in 1976 in the play O Bamboulas at the Kava Theatre and his television debut a year earlier in the adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s Christ Recrucified.
His film career began in 1981 with Mathe paidi mou grammata, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Three years later he took the Best Actor prize at the same festival for his leading role in Nikos Perakis’s classic comedy Loufa kai parallagi (1984).
Kalogeropoulos became widely known to television audiences for his dual roles as Mitsos and Maimos in the popular 1989 ERT comedy series Sto camping. The 13-episode series was filmed on location at a real campsite in Drepano, where cast and crew lived in tents and actual holidaymakers appeared as extras.
After a period away from the screen during which he focused on poetry, songwriting and theatre — releasing the poetry collection Epistrofia (1991) and the album Ta deonta — he returned to cinema in 1999 with Thilyki etaireia. In 2000 he received another Best Actor award at the State Film Awards for his performance in Enas ki Enas.
Kalogeropoulos leaves behind a body of work that spanned cinema, television, theatre, poetry and music, marked by both dramatic depth and memorable comic performances.
