Greek actors/actresses

Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 1967), better known by his stage name Criss Angel, is aGreek American  musician, and stunt performer. He is best known for starring in his own television show, Criss Angel Mindfreak.

Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is a Greek American actress. She established her acting career in the 1990s with her role as Rachel Green in the U.S. sitcom Friends, a role for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

She has starred in Hollywood films. While most of her film roles have been in comedies such as Bruce Almighty, Office Space, Rumor Has It, and the romantic comedies Along Came Polly and The Break-Up, she has also appeared in films from other genres such as the horror-comedy Leprechaun, the crime thriller Derailed and the musical drama Rock Star.

Michael Charles Chiklis (born August 30, 1963) is a Greek American actor, voice actor, occasional director and television producer. He is known for starring in the TV series The Commish (1991–1996) and The Shield (2002–2008) as well as for his role as The Thing in the Fantastic Four film series.

Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (born May 18, 1970) is a Greek American actress, comedienne, writer, and producer. She has received seven Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Writers Guild of America Awards. She was singled out as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008 by the Associated Press, who gave her their AP Entertainer of the Year award.

After graduating from the University of Virginia in 1992, Fey moved to Chicago to take classes at the improvisational comedy group The Second City, where she became a featured player in 1994. Three years later, Fey became a writer for the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). She was promoted to the position of head writer in 1999. The following year, Fey was added to the cast of SNL. During her time there, she was co-anchor of the show's Weekend Update segment. After leaving SNL in 2006, she created her own television series called 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at SNL. In the series, Fey portrays the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series.

In 2004, Fey made her film debut as writer and co-star of the teen comedy Mean Girls. In 2008, she starred in the comedy film Baby Mama, alongside Amy Poehler. In 2009, Fey won an Emmy Award for her satirical portrayal of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a guest appearance on SNL.

Maria Menounos (Greek: Μαρία Μενούνος; born June 8, 1978) is an American actress, journalist, and television presenter known at home for her appearances as a correspondent for The Today Show and Access Hollywood, and abroad for co-hosting the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, Greece.

Aristotelis “Telly” Savalas (January 21, 1924 – January 22, 1994) was a Greek American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). His other movie credits include The Young Savages (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Scalphunters (1968), supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Inside Out (1975) and Escape to Athena (1979). He was easily recognizable with his shaved head and strong, masculine features.

John Phillip Stamos (pronounced /ˈsteɪmoʊs/; born August 19, 1963) is a Greek American actor best known for his work in television, especially as Uncle Jesse on the ABC sitcom Full House. Since the cancellation of that show in 1995, Stamos has appeared in numerous television films and series. From 2006 to 2009, Stamos had a starring role on the NBC medical drama ER. In September 2009, he began playing the role of Albert in the Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie.

Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos (born September 24, 1962) is a Greek-Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, and producer. Vardalos had done many different works but gained almost overnight success with her movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The success of the movie led to an unsuccessful television series on CBS, called My Big Fat Greek Life. Except for John Corbett, this series featured the original movie cast. In 2004 she followed it up with Connie and Carla, which co-starred Toni Collette. Vardalos and her husband have appeared together in both of those films, as well as Meet Prince Charming (1999). Vardalos also guest starred on The Drew Carey Show in 1997, where her husband was a frequent guest star. Her next work was the movie My Life in Ruins, which arrived in theaters in 2009.

Amy Sedaris (born March 29, 1961) is a Greek American actress, author and comedienne. She is perhaps best known for playing the character Jerri Blank in the Comedy Central television series Strangers with Candy. Sedaris regularly collaborates with her older brother, humorist and author David Sedaris. She is recognized as a frequent guest on The Late Show with David Letterman.

 

Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη) was the stage name of the famous Greek actress Cybele Andrianou (Greek: Κυβέλη Ανδριανού).

She was born in 1887 to an unmarried couple in Smyrna and spend the first two years of her life in an Athens orphanage. At the age of two-and-a-half, she was adopted by Anastasis and Maria Andrianou. The family of a famous Athenian lawyer of the time, who had recently lost their only child, helped Cybele's adoptive parents financially. In 1901, at the age of 14, she received her first award for her stage performance.

Melina Mercouri (Greek: Μελίνα Μερκούρη), born as Maria Amalia Mercouris (October 18, 1920, Athens, Greece – March 6, 1994, New York City, New York) was a Greek actress, singer and politician.

As an actress she made her film debut in Stella (1955) and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi and Promise at Dawn. She won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, and she was also nominated for an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two BAFTA Awards.

A political activist during the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, she became a member of the Hellenic Parliament in 1977 and the first female Minister for Culture of Greece in 1981. Mercouri was the person who, in 1983, conceived and proposed the programme of the European Capital of Culture, which has been established by the European Union since 1985.

She was a strong advocate for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, that were removed from the Parthenon and are now displayed in the British Museum, to Athens.

Alexis Minotakis, known as Alexis Minotis, was born 8 August 1898 or 1899 in Deliana, Chania, Crete and died on 11 November 1990 in Athens, Greece.

Minotis was a distinguished Greek actor and director. He first appeared on stage in his native Crete as Chorus Leader and later as Messenger in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. From 1925 until 1930, he worked in close collaboration with the famous Greek actress Marika Kotopouli in her own theatre. During this period, he appeared in the great Shakespearan roles in The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Macbeth and played the title role in Hamlet, the first time the play had been staged in Greece. Other roles in the classical repertoire were Ibsen's Ghosts and Peer Gynt. He expanded his talents by directing ancient Greek tragedies such as Hecuba, Antigone, The Phoenissae, Prometheus Bound, Oedipus at Colonus, as well as Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, Strindberg's The Father and Brecht`s Mother Courage.

In 1940, he married the actress Katina Paxinou and together they appeared in many productions at the Royal Theatre in Athens which they founded.

In 1946, he went to Hollywood to appear in Sir Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. In the same year, he also appeared with Robert Cummings and Michèle Morgan in The Chase. His other films include Siren of Atlantis (1949) with Maria Montez, Boy on a Dolphin (1957) with Sophia Loren, and Land of the Pharaohs (1955) with Joan Collins.

In 1955, he directed Katina Paxinou in Euripides' Hecuba for the National Theatre of Greece at The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus and starred in Oedipus Rex as well as directing. In 1956, he made his first appearance in Oedipus at Colonus. The production received great acclaim and Minotis went on a long international tour with the company.

Katina Paxinou (December 17, 1900 - February 22, 1973) was an Academy Award-winning Greek film and theatre actress.

Born Aikaterini (Catherine) Konstantopoulou in Piraeus, Greece, she trained as an opera singer but changed career and joined the Greek Royal Theater in 1929. Paxinou distinguished herself on the stage. When World War II broke out, she was performing in London. Unable to return to Greece, she emigrated to the United States.

He appeared on Broadway in Electra with the Marika Kotopouli company in 1930-31 and in Oedipus Tyrannus with the National Theatre of Greece in 1952.

In 1958, Minotis directed Maria Callas in a production of Medea presented in Dallas. The production was then seen at Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala and Epidaurus. He also directed the Greek National Opera production of Norma with Callas in Epidaurus in 1961.

She was selected to play "Pilár" in the 1943 film For Whom the Bell Tolls, winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture. She continued appearing in Hollywood films until 1949. She made one British film as well, lay, again, a gypsy woman, this time in the 1959 Technicolor religious epic, The Miracle.

In 1950, Paxinou resumed her stage career. In her native Greece, she formed the Royal Theatre of Athens with Alexis Minotis, her principal director and her husband Ioannis Paxinos, since 1940.

Paxinou made several appearances on the Broadway stage and television as well, including the lead role in the first production in English of Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, at the ANTA Playhouse in New York in 1951, and a BBC production of Lorca's Blood wedding (Bodas de sangre), broadcast on June 2, 1959.