Nikos Xanthopoulos | WatchedThis
Nikos Xanthopoulos
Acting
Biography
Nikos Xanthopoulos (Greek: Nίκος Ξανθόπουλος; 14 March 1934 – 22 January 2023) was a Greek actor and singer, known for his roles in the 1960s era Greek Drama Cinema. He was also a singer of Greek folk bouzouki, having released many albums and singles. He was known as "the child of the folk" (παιδί του λαού) mainly for playing roles depicting men from the lower working classes. He usually portrayed a poor man, hit hard by fate, seeking justice or one struggling against wealthy and evil men. In other cases, he played the role of an immigrant in Germany working hard to provide for his wife and child. Other times he played an unknown poor bouzouki player and singer working his way up to stardom. From the late 1960s until the early 1970s, these roles helped him become a star in Greece during the dictatorship of the Junta. Xanthopoulos was born in Athens, Greece in 1934. He was a stage actor from 1957 to 1963, but he soon devoted himself exclusively to cinema. His film debut was in 1958 with a small role in Η Ζωή Μου Αρχίζει Με Σένα (My Life Starts With You). At 1964 he started collaborating with director-producer Apostolos Tegopoulos and the film company KLAK Film. That's when he became most famous for his roles – a golden period that lasted until 1971. It was his roles portraying him as a singer and bouzouki player that dictated that he needed to learn how to sing. Apostolos Kaldaras, a famous Greek musician and composer, taught Xanthopoulos to sing. Xanthopoulos sang over 300 songs in thirty movies, but his singing talent was not confined to movies. He recorded nine albums and 55 singles. His most successful films were produced by KLAK Film, a film production company who specialised in Greek drama films, called μελό or σπαραξικάρδια. Films included: Ο Αετός των Σκλαβωμένων (The Eagle of the Enslaved) and Είμαι μια δυστυχισμένη (I am a miserable girl). Movies of that kind were successful. Xanthopoulos collaborated with many young actresses of his time, including Martha Vourtsi. Martha Vourtsi and Xanthopoulos, quickly became a duo, starring in seven films, their most notable being Περιφρόνα με γλυκιά μου (Contempt me, my dear). Other actresses that played the love interest of Nikos Xanthopoulos were: Angela Zilia, Afroditi Grigoriadou, Kakia Analyti, Katerina Vasilakou, Mairoula Evangelou, Dora Sitzani and Kaiti Papanika.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Orpheus Descending
Eurydice is a singer in a group that plays in country fairs. The group is not successful and Eurydice gets convinced by a rich farmer to follow him to Athens, where he promises her that he will make her a famous singer. Things do not turn out as promised, and Eurydice returns to the band, which is very successful now, due to Orpheus, a mute clarinet player, who has joined them. The farmer comes to reclaim her by force and Eurydice gets killed in a car accident. Orpheus tries to give her life with his clarinet.
I Love Only You
A poor and refined water fisherman, Zafeiris Kassis (Nikos Xanthopoulos), who was invited by the barba - Minas pop singer in Athens, maintains his mother and his sister's widow's family. In the center where he sings, Renata, the daughter of the millionaire big publisher Derku and editor of one of his newspapers, is visiting him. At their first meeting, they strongly argue because of a girl's article in the newspaper and his own response. When they happen to meet again in Hydra, where they know better, a strong and mutual feeling develops between them. Renata's father and his environment are opposed to this relationship, while Renata is forced to leave Zafire. But her love for him is unshakable.
Men Know How to Love
A delicious and understated countryman, Anna, leaves for the capital to study. He's hitchhiking on the motorway, and a business car, with a medical practitioner, stops to get it. The driver, named Fanis, is doing this job very much to take care of his seriously ill mother. Fanis gives her a place in his house to stay and, over time, falls in love with her, but family situations force Anna to abandon her studies. She returns to the village and marries her fellow villager, the Bargaining Barnabas. This, above all, has sent her father to the grave for unbearable debts. After his death and his mother, Fanis comes to the village and tries to persuade the girl to follow him to Athens, which is done with the mediator's help from the pope. Fanis promises to finish his studies and become the doctor of the village, to marry Anna naturally and to have children.
It is a great pity
Mr. Anastasis, an elderly bouzoukis who suffers from his heart, forbids Liza's daughter to become a singer. When she learns that she has violated her commandments, she leaves the house because she does not want to be her weight and begins to beg. Meanwhile, Lisa knows Michalis, a motorbike acrobat, who makes the "round of death" in an amusement park, and they fall in love with each other. One night, at the center where she sings, she meets a rich thirty-five, who then turns out to be her brother who was lost during the German Occupation. Together they will seek their elder father, find him, and return all together to their home. Near them is Michalis, the old man of the brisk Liza.
Beggar of Love
A pop singer with a good heart and a lot of achievements, Manos, tenderly loves an orphan anthopolida, Annoula, which works several years in the center singing Manos, in order to finish high school. When he decides to leave Daisy's mistress and marry Anna, the girl's natural father, who was missing seventeen years in Canada, intervenes and claims her. He tries to redeem her stepfather and mistress, Mr Spyros, who, however, refuses. Anna is following her natural father in Thessaloniki. Mr. Spiros is in danger of dying from his fortune, and Manos gets sick by losing his voice. But everything is corrected by the return of the girl and the revelation that her father suddenly remembered it because she intended to put in the money her mother left.
The Horseman's Revenge
In a mountainous Greek village, two brothers passionately fall in love with the same woman. Their great love for them makes them unrelenting rivals, with the consequent tragic conflict between them and their extinction.
The Eagle of the Enslaved
Unfair curse
Costas finds Peter, a poor medical student, and convinces him to marry his sister Lisa. After the wedding, Peter leaves for London, but when he returns, Lisa's relatives avoid him. What has happened;
The Bus Conductor
The daily life of a debt collector and the little adventures he encounters in his life.
Mitros and Mitrousis in Athens
Two friends from the province dream of going to Athens. On board the train, however, two smugglers are being asked and offered to hire them as waiters in the nightclub as a showcase.
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