Biography

Stavros Paravas (Greek: Σταύρος Παράβας, Athens, 15 April 1935 - 15 September 2008) was a Greek actor with anti-dictatorship activities, for which he was exiled to Gyaros during the Ioannides dictatorship. He was born in Tourkovounia and his parents were from Asia Minor. In order to help his family financially, he started working from a young age, doing various errands. The first person to notice his artistic talent was his singing teacher at the fifth high school of Athens where he was studying. Before finishing school and despite the reactions of his family, he enrolled in the drama school of Kostas Michaelides, who, assessing his talent, kept him in the school without paying tuition. At the Rex Theater, in the play “Seven Years of Itching”, Paravas asked the playwright to write him an anti-dictatorship mantinada. After a number of performances, he was arrested inside the theater by military police in civilian clothes. He was arrested and tortured in 1974 during the dictatorship of Ioannides and exiled to Gyaros. Stavros Paravas remained in Gyaros until the fall of the junta and was one of the last 44 exiles to leave hell. He married a British woman and had three children with her: Vanessa, Martha and Jonathan. The sudden death of the latter shook him mentally. He was a supporter of Panathinaikos. In February 2007, he faced serious health problems, heart failure, multiple strokes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which he overcame. He died of a heart attack and was buried two days later at public expense. His first appearance in the theater was in 1955 in the performance The First Lie with the Katerinas troupe. He then collaborated with Vilma Kyrou and immediately after fulfilling his military obligations with Dinos Iliopoulos and Kostas Hadjichristos. With the actress and dancer Eleni Prokopiou they played in many films together, while they also collaborated in the theater. In the 70s, he turned to auditing. The performance Dirlantas was also the reason for his exile. In the following decade, he switched to more classical roles. His first appearance in Epidaurus was in Aristophanes's Plutarch, where he played the role of Chremylos. His first appearance in cinema was in 1960 in the film Christina by Yannis Dalianidis. He followed this with participation in about 50 more films, mainly in comic roles. In the 1980s and 1990s he also participated in some television series. (Source: Wikipedia)