Rather than being a similarity of feature or figure, however, it was more a style of appearance; not the black hair, but the way it was worn, rather long and loose; not the eyes so much, but the way they were “unmade-up”; it was a manner of walking, of smiling, of talking, even. Far from being an ethnological oddity, it was a social fact, and the natives had a verb for it: lambetizei, “to play Lambeti”.
Elli Lambeti was then at the peak of her career. Her name and that of her acting partner, Dimitri Horn, stood up large and clear above the Moussouri Theater next to the Old Parliament in central Athens. Her wide impact must have been largely derived from her films, like The Woman in Black, Stella and some romantic comedies, in those pre-television days, when there were still few cars in Athens and the passion for swimming was in its infancy, the Sunday cinema was the national weekend entertainment.
It wasn’t merely that Lambeti could translate foreign roles for a local audience – she made them her own, and by doing so, made them Greek. Early post-war Athens felt isolated in the contemporary world and sought identity, mostly in imported images that were foreign to it. By her special alchemy, Lambeti made these images real, and this is why so many young women of that generation emulated her: she made them feel up-to-date and Greek, and proud of being both.
Lambeti’s film career was brief, but her nearly forty years on the stage constituted a series of parts that were remarkable in number and variety. Although always inclined to comedy, her leading roles in Saint Joan, The Cherry Orchard, La Dame aux Cornelias and A Streetcar Named Desire, were among her most acclaimed performances.
The triumphs of her theatrical career were dogged by the disasters that befell her personal life. A brother and sister died young of tuberculosis, her mother was fatally injured at her window by a stray bullet shot in a street brawl; her three remaining sisters died before they reached thirty, two of cancer and one in a road accident; her father died suddenly while she was playing in Life with Father. In 1969 she was discovered to have cancer which proved to be incurable. Yet her successes in The Cherry Orchard, Miss Margarita and Filomena Marturano all came later, and in her last appearances she played the role of the mute in Children of the Lesser God. Lambeti died last month, aged 57, in New York’s Mount Sinai hospital, after more than a decade of admissions, releases and readmissions to Sloan-Kettering.
Greece honors most those who fertilize and extend its ethnic sensitivity, whatever its source, whatever its end. But Lambeti, who translated so much life from abroad, was untranslatable herself, and never achieved an international fame she deserved. Yet she flourished in her own garden where native flowers grow best. Those who had the opportunity to see her do “her” Chekhov, “her” Shaw, “her” Dumas, “her” Tennessee Williams, saw her not only create wonderful worlds, but give them with great courage and generosity to her audiences, so that they, too, should possess them and call them their own.
Lambeti was passionately devoted to poetry all of her life. Even her stage name came from a line of Valaoritis. But her favorite poet was Cavafy and, fortunately, her voice has been preserved reading some of his works. This record is among a series of recently released readings which were the final achievement of Alekos Patsifas, a long and close friend of Lambeti’s, who died the day after she did. Co-founder of the publishing house, Ikaros, with poet Nikos Karydis and Lambeti’s first husband, Marios Ploritis, he was closely associated with the publications of poetry by Seferis, Sikelianos and Elytis. As founder of Lyra records, Patsifas was even more closely responsible for recording some of the best known works of Hadzidakis, Theodorakis and Savvopoulos as well as for launching the careers of many leading contemporary musicians.
On consecutive days at the First Cemetery last month, the cultural world of Athens paid tribute to two figures who had made a major impact on its theatrical, musical and literary life.
