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IT TAKES CHARACTER TO BE AN ACTOR
Jenny Karezi is known for her true talent, her external beauty and her inner class, all of these had been the unique qualities that our much loved actress has been characterized with.
She was born in January 12th, 1936 in Athens. Her parents were teachers, thus she spent her childhood, in several cities of Greece, where her parents were appointed to. She discovers her great love for the theater, during her early adolescence since she had been participating in many school performances.
In 1951, when she was 15 years old, she starts her studies in the National Theatre Drama School. She graduates in 1954 and within the same year comes her first play premier in the performance Beautiful Helen, next to Melina Merkouri. Since then and until 1959, she plays various parts in the National Theater, next to famous actors of that era. In 1960, she abandons the National Theater and creates her own theater company. The performances she participated in, throughout her whole carrier were very carefully selected. As she said: “I never did this for money. Money was of no interest to me. I did it because I wanted to play in front of an audience”.
It takes character to be an actor. You need to produce ethos. This is something Jenny Karezi knew very well and had always kept it in mind for all the performances she had undertaken. A characteristic example is the play Our Big Circus (To megalo mas tsirko), in the Athinaion theater, during the summer of 1973. The performance was a presentation of the Greek history, since the era of the Turkish occupation until the by then present (1973). Nikos Xilouris was participating in the performance as well. The Colonels’ junta imprisoned Jenny for three months due to this performance. The end of her theatrical career came in 1990 with the play Diamonds and Blues.
It was only natural for such a big actress as her to participate in the cinema as well. Her first movie was Hurdy-Gurdy, Poverty and Earnestness in 1955. (Laterna, Ftoheia kai Filotimo). There were 31 more movies and the last one was Lysistrati in 1972. Jenny Karezi played parts in TV series too.
In her personal life, she got married twice. Her first husband was Zachos Hatzifotiou, in 1962 and her second husband was Costas Kazakos in 1967, with whom she remained married till the end of her life. Jenny Karezi had characteristically stated about her husband: “I would love to have met Costas earlier. It would be better not to have left years passed by. Nothing more. You see, I’ve been waited for Kazakos throughout my whole life, I had not found him, so I was just wandering around”.
Text translated from Greek, source http://www.matia.gr/7/73/7307/7307_1_9.html