In his Sunday paper “Daily” dated January 28, 1996, an interview with him was published Nikos Xanthopoulos. He was then 62 years old and he reappeared, many years later, in the cinema, in the film by Giorgos Zervulakos “With Orpheus in August”.

The decades that have passed since 1996 have clouded the clarity and completeness of the overall picture of the meeting, but failed to erase either the sound of a voice, a mixture of a popular/cultured person, or the immediacy and sincerity of the answers. His speech is rich, lively, but economical. He wore, as can be seen from the photographs, a beige turtleneck, a plaid jacket, thick and gray hair, and large-rimmed short-sighted glasses. The walls of his cozy house, hung with bookshelves, totaled, at that time, more than 20,000 volumes, he had not yet moved to the Paiania estate, but was already taking care of the vines he had bought. A samovar is visible on the shelf. Looking back, I think it may have been a family heirloom inherited from his Pontic refugee parents.

In the preface to this interview, I noted that he was a devoted reader of the Catimerini. How did he, the “son of the people”, the people’s hero, read a bourgeois, conservative newspaper? “We always think that a person is what he appears to be,” he commented.

In Orpheus in August, his last feature film role, he played the troubled leader of a folk troupe singing at festivals. “I’m not the one who plays. Alekos Tralos is not Nikos Xanthopoulos, former professional singer, now an outsider. For me, my work is cinema,” he explains.

“My own experience is with the area. With weak and complaining people. Mom is in a factory, dad is a shoemaker. I grew up humble, honest and humble. I may have mixed with a folk song, but I’m not a dude. I am a family man. I wanted to transfer what I experienced to the cinema. I didn’t like the part I was playing back then. He really caught me. I became a hostage to this sympathy and love for the world.”

“For me, a good conversation, a warm look, a human gesture are irreplaceable things,” said N. Xanthopoulos.

In the question “your way, except for hostage” was also your choice. With or without losses?” he replies, compiling his psychograph: “I don’t want big things. I want dimensions that are human, emotional and warm. “And what is the use of a man if he loses his soul…”. I care about my family, about my children, that we are all together. I remember my father, a refugee from Kerasunda, telling me sweet stories that had value. Perhaps that is why these values ​​are the consolation and refuge of the weak. To believe and honor them… For me, a good conversation, a warm look, a human gesture are irreplaceable things. They matter more than anything else.”

In one of the last questions of a rather long discussion, we ask if being famous made his life easier: “I have to say that most people like me. I have met people from all walks of life. From the one who does not know what he will do tomorrow, to the one who does not know how many ships he has. Once I happened to go to London to the house of rich shipowners. So, the lady had two photographs on her bedside table: Cary Grant and Nikos Xanthopoulos. And understand correctly what I am saying … I was destined to see in my life what I did not even suspect. Who am I! Son of Mr. Panagiotis! I think, however, that the love of the world has made me a better person. Get the thorns out of me.”

For what I didn’t do, I’m sick

He was born in Northern Ionia of Athens, the son of Pontic refugees. He loved the theater (his mentor was Manos Katrakis) and AEK. “Can I play Othello or Macbeth, which I also played at school? Or Leonardo in Blood Wedding? I look back, see what I didn’t do, and it hurts. If you sum up my work, you will find it all within seven years … “, he said in an interview. He became extremely popular in the 1960s as a leading man in dramatic films, mainly playing the role of the poor and downtrodden a peasant boy who lives in poverty, but eventually redeems himself.For the needs of films, he also became a singer, then switching to folk singing.

His last film appearance was in 2004 in the documentary “For five flats and a shop” by Yiannis Skopeteas about the architecture and society of Athens through Greek films (1924–2004) produced by the Benaki Museum.

The funeral of Nikos Xanthopoulos today, at 13:00, at the First Cemetery will be political. The actor and singer passed away last Sunday at the age of 89.