Actress
Aunt of Manousos Manousakis
Aunt of Aias Manthopoulos
Festival tribute at the Crteil International Womens Film Festival, France.
2002: She was named "Europes woman", a title given to women who offer a lot to European civilization. In her speech, she sang a Greek folklore song
She has no intention of returning to Greece to play in theatre, because she has suffered from continuous negative criticisms. She starred as the Greek heroine of 1821 (when Greek fought the Turks) in the film Bouboulina . She was a personal friend of the Greek prime-minister Andreas Papandreou.
Like the other Greek actress of international fame, Melina Mercouri , she has recorded some records (now available as CDs), which have gained the status of classics in Greece and are very popular around the Greek Orthodox Easter. The names of the records are Odes and Rapsodies, containing 15 traditional songs and hymns of the Greek Orthodox church. The songs and hymns have been re-arranged by the Oscar-winning composer Vangelis. She has also recorded songs of Mikis Theodorakis , but this particular record has been out of stock for many decades, although it had been said that it would be published in 2004 again.
She was discovered by Elia Kazan.
Federico Fellini was a huge admirer of her work.
She was a dear friend of Katharine Hepburn , with whom she starred in The Trojan Women . Hepburn once said that she is "one of the best actresses in the history of cinema".
Provided the (somewhat breathless) vocals on track 5 disc 2 (named only with a infinity symbol) of the Aphrodites Child 1971 concept album "666", music for which was composed by Vangelis Papathanassiou. The keyboards on the album were played by Vangelis and the bass and some of the vocals were played and sung by Demis Roussos.
Owns houses in Greece, Spain and Italy.
Member of the Anna-Marie Foundations board of directors along with members of the Greek royal family.
Confirmed in an interview that she had an affair with Marlon Brando , a close friend until his death.
Irene Papas appeared with Anthony Quinn in 7 films starting as far back as 1954. The films are "Attila" , The Guns of Navarone" , "Zorba the Greek", "A Dream of Kings" , the Mexican produced, Spanish languaged and filmed in Rome short film "El asesinato de Julio Cesar" , "The Messenger" , and "The Lion of the Desert".
Starred in two different versions of "The Odyssey": "Odissea" as Penelope, and "The Odyssey" as Anticleia.
Is of Albanian decent.
Fluent in Greek, English, French and Italian.
I never won an Oscar. . . and the Oscars never won Irene Papas.
I never wanted to play sensational parts, or those of desirable women. I,wanted to play me. . . the independent fighter. .
