He had seen the horrors of the Second World War, and described them in a few lines that still chill. “They are not forgotten, no matter how many years pass. How can the climb to the hill of Aghios Athanasios in Himara be erased from my memory? We climbed with our hands and feet, fighting with stones. I had, I remember, five cartridges for 20 hours. Where we had climbed, the transports could not reach us. And we were fighting with stones.”
Years after the Albanian front, he had to face another loss.
The road from Farsala
By 1978 Papagiannopoulos was an established actor, with about 130 films behind him. His latest was the bittersweet role of tavern keeper Giorgis Kolaouzos in Mr Giorgis is Trained. He was also a lead in the television series Luna Park and still working in the theatre.
On 12 January that year he was travelling with his company after a performance of The Magoufis. They were returning from Farsala to Chalkida. At 9.30 a.m., at the sixth kilometre of the Farsala–Mikrothives road, the car driven by the young actor Yiannis Michalakos hit ice left by snow. He lost control and the car struck a PPC pole.
Papagiannopoulos came out of the wreck with a broken collarbone and a head injury. In the back seat, Popi Lazou and Mina Politou were more lightly hurt. The woman in the passenger seat was not.
Haris Loukea
She was Haris Loukea, 42, an actress and photographic model. A cousin of hers had been named Star Hellas. Loukea had chosen cinema, with roles in Golfo, The Shepherdess’s Lover and Our Lady the Nanny, and she also worked in the theatre. She was married and had a child.
The car might have stopped in the snowbanks at the side of the road. Instead it hit the pole. In an age before airbags, and when seat belts were often unused, the collision killed her.
Papagiannopoulos was deeply affected, and later learned what had happened to his colleague. On the few occasions he spoke of it, he talked about the “bad hour” that brought misery and death. He carried the memory until his own death. He was found in his apartment several days after he died, on 13 April 1984. He was 72.
