Tolis Voskopoulos

Tolis Voskopoulos New CD-Stis Zois Mou Tis Strates On SALE Now For Only $16.18 At greekmusic.com..Tolis Voskopoulos (born 26 July 1940) is one of the legends of modern Greek music. He starred in many films and played in the Theatre in Athens. One of his greatest theatrical hits was Oi Erastes tou Oneirou (Dream Lovers) opposite Zoe Laskari. He now resides in Corfu Greece, where he gives concerts from time to time, some of them for charitable purposes. One of his latest charitable events was a spectacular free concert at the historic Palaio Frourio in Corfu in the summer of 2005.Tolis Voskopoulos: A life less ordinaryThe King of Cool puts the final touches to his autobiography. Inevitably a huge chunk of the soon-to-be-released book is dedicated to the women of his life.If you thought Lefteris Pantazis or Notis Sfakianakis are the kings of Greek music, think again. While their status in the Pantheon of Greek song is undeniable, they have been and will always remain the jesters in the court of the undisputed King, Tolis Voskopoulos. With a voice as smooth as a newborn baby’s bottom and his cooler than cool attitude, Voskopoulos has remained at the forefront of Greek Music for well over 40 years. The adoration he enjoys from his fans is simply unequalled by any other performer, new or old. His few and between performances of late are met by feverish anticipation of music lovers and media alike, who seem to thrive on every note that springs from his lungs. And if it was in Voskopoulos’s absence that the ‘young pretenders’ managed to get their foot in the door and eventually stake their claims to the King’s throne, their shortcomings as performers and inadequate vocal capacities only serve as a reminder that charm is a God given gift, not something you can work on, escalating the demand of even a glimpse of the old master to never before reached heights.To put it simply, the more Voskopoulos holds back, the more people ask for his return, and subsequently the bigger the pay packet gets whenever the King decides to grace us with his presence. The fee he demands – and gets, no questions asked- is that usually reserved for international stars with whole industries behind them, and it’s such that no other performer in the history of Greek music can claim to have even got close to. If Voskopoulos doesn’t appear to be as wealthy as some of his counterparts, put that down to his generosity and love of good life. Tolis loves to spend and he loves to spend big, especially when it comes to presents for those he loves or the women in his life. (Some of these women have more or less run him dry, but that’s another story).Inevitably, news of the Tolis Voskopoulos autobiography has already caused a frenzy amongst Athenian publishing houses, with a small scale ‘civil war’ expected to erupt in the following weeks, over who is going to win the rights to publish what already shapes to be the ‘Book of the Year”.And if you expect stories from the underbelly or the sexual escapades of the rich and famous, I’m afraid you will be disappointed. Voskopoulos doesn’t kiss and tell. The few people who have read a rough copy of the book claim that the King of Cool keeps his stance as a gentleman’s gentleman throughout his biography, treating the many women he has loved in his life with the outmost respect. Even ex-wife Julia who almost ruined the man and his career, before their eventual bust up caused an uproar in the Greek media that lasted for well over two years, gets the cool approach Voskopoulos is so famous for. As for his sister Panagiota, who recently embarked an a public lashing of her famous sibling, Voskopoulos again keeps his composure, closing the matter for ever with a very stoic remark: “I forgive her, maybe she misjudged me”.Of course the fact that the great man’s autobiography will be a ‘bed frolics’ free zone, shouldn’t deter from its importance and sheer entertainment value. Voskopoulos’ rugs-to-riches story, sprinkled with his affairs – and very public breakups- with some of the best looking and most famous Greek women of the second half of the 20th century, should prove enough to make the book a very compelling reading material indeed that will effortlessly find its way on the bookshelves of millions of Greeks around the globe.In the beginning there was…Tolis Voskopoulos’ family hails from Asia Minor, Turkey, a place once largely inhabited by Greeks before the events of 1922 drove them away and back into the arms of the motherland. With them they brought their love of good life and culture, their formidable skills in the art of business, especially in imports & exports- as well as the determination to pick up where they left and slowly and through hard work rebuilt their lives. Most importantly they brought with them ‘rembetika’ a type of music based on the bouzouki and baglama that would eventually become the national music of Greece and the basic ingedient of what we today call ‘laika”. This partly explains Voskopoulos extrovert behavior on stage and his need to communicate with the masses, despite the introvent leaning of his character. A quite man off the stage, Voskopoulos goes through an amazing transformation in front of an orchestra, perhaps as an unconscious homage to his ancestor’s reputation as entertainers.Growing up in those was far from easy. Plagued by unemployment and inadequate living conditions, as well as the second world war and the civil one that followed it, wars that brought the still young Greek nation to its knees, not many lived past their teenage years. The Voskopoulos’ household was no exception. Out of the 11 children born into the family, only 5 survived.But unlike his other siblings the young Tolis had a dream and he wasn’t prepared to let anyone or anything stand in his way. He dreamed of a career on stage, and as a first step he enrolled in an acting school. Sufficient to say, Voskopoulos finished his studies with distinction, and by the mid 50s he was already taking his first steps as an actor, which were met by encouraging comments by critics and fellow thespians alike. Alas, it was not to be as Voskopoulos had already been infected with the music bug.His first marriage & the affair with DoukisaTolis Voskopoulos quickly become a household name in Greece, with thousands of young women vying for his attention. All to no avail though, as the young showman was already smitten with Stella Stratigou, descendant of the well known family of actors. The two of them eventually got married, and Voskopoulos settled well in domesticity. But just when everyone believed Tolis and Stella were the perfect couple, Voskopoulos meets the great lady of ‘laika’ Doukisa, with whom she embarks on a torrid but short lived love affair, that will strain his marriage to Stella forever.Meanwhile, and despite the fact he was dedicating more and more of his energy to his singing career, Voskopoulos somehow finds the time to dabble in his first love, acting, appearing in string of very successful movies. He is now a superstar with a Midas touch, turning fluff like ‘Marijuana, Stop” and “Adelphia mou, Alites, Poulia” into major cinematic experiences for his adoring fans, who in return pack cinemas to the brim to catch a glimpse of the singing actor (or acting singer, if you prefer).Zoi Laskari and MarinelaOn the set of ‘Marijuana, Stop” Voskopoulos meets beauty queen turned actress, Zoi Laskari and it doesn’t take long before he falls in love with Greece’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. Laskari on her behalf, responds favorably to his advances and soon the two of them move in together.In the meantime, his divorce with Stella is finalized amicably, with the two divorcees remaining close fiends for years. But not everything is well with Voskopoulos. His affair with Lakari is slowly turning sour, with the actress eventually drifting out of Voskopoulos life, after three and a half years of seemingly perpetual bliss.Tolis is again a free man. Free to roam and to take advantage of his star status, bedding one starlet after another. But perhaps succumbing to the phrase ‘once bitten, twice shy’ the great man decides to stay away from the trappings of love, a lonesome figure cutting through the excessive lifestyle that comes strapped on the chariot of stardom.But solitude wasn’t exactly designed for Voskopoulos, and after a couple of years of self infected loneliness, the little angel with the bow and arrows pierces his heart yet again. This time is real and the woman that stole his heart- famous Greek singer Marinella- soon walks hand in hand with Tolis around a the altar. The King of Cool and the Queen of Song are finally together, in what was with out a doubt the biggest show biz pairing since Aliki Vougiouklaki and Dimitris Papamichael tied the knot.But like Alikis and Dimitris’ marriage, the union of the two inflated egos was bound to sooner or later start cracking at the seams. Finally after seven years together Tolis walks out on Marinella, leaving their matrimonial house – and basically most of his belongings- to his famous wife.Julia and the years in the wildernessHaving not learned from his mistakes, Voskopoulos decides to have another crack at happiness. Breaking away with the tradition that wanted him to melt in the hands of fiercely independent and famous femme fatales, he decides to walk down the aisle with a mere mortal, the quiet and very much unknown Julia.His marriage to Julia coincides –or some might argue as a result of- with his almost total withdrawal from the public eye. His performances are few and sporadic and what’s worst, he is hardly ever seen in public. Meanwhile stories that start circulating in the music work- which some way or another find their way into the gossip pages of the Greek press- claim the once great showman is little more than a sad reclusive figure, a toned down version of Howard Hughes, a broken down shadow of his former self.But all that is soon to change and when Voskopoulos decides to make his grand return – and for all the wrong reasons at that- the press is all over him again. After four years of married life to Julia, he files for divorce, claiming his wife has squandered the four billion drachmas (!!!) he has made from his few appearances since they got married. What’s more Voskopoulos claimed Julia along with her brothers and –wait for it- his mother-in-law have used mental, and occasionally physical- violence to extract money off him. According to Voskopoulos it wasn’t an unusual thing for Julia’s brothers – guided by their mother, it has to added- to hit him whenever he dared refuse to hand over cash.In her defense, Julia claimed that for all the mannish front, Voskopoulos was plagued by anxieties – his fear of flying, for example, is well document- and that behind his excessive spending was a child vying or attention. According to Julia, the Voskopoulos was obsessed with living up to his name as the biggest star of the Greek music galaxy. Sensing that his days as King were finally over, and he was slowly being demoted to a humble servant, Voskopoulos took on showering people with lavish gifts, using money that he simply did not have. What’s more he had only worked for less than seventy days in the four years since he got married to Julia, making his claims that his former wife has spent the four billion drahmas he had made, a fragment of his imagination, as well as a sign of his flailing mental health. “And if he had made that much” concluded Julia, closing the matter once and for all “wouldn’t he have declared them in his tax forms?”At last happiness, in the arms of Angela GerekouFear of a confrontation with the taxman, wasn’t the only reason that forced Voskopoulos to abandon his claims against Julia. The King was besotted with young (ish) actress Angela Gerekou. She is, he told anyone that would listen, the woman he had been looking for all his life, the answer to all his prayers, a God send gift. Not everyone agreed, though.A fine actress in her own right, Gerekou was most famous for her affair with the much older , Yiorgoa Vardinoyiannis billionaire and president of soccer club, Panathiankos. News of her affair with Voskopoulos were made by skepticism by the Greek media, and Voskopoulos’ numerous fans who believed she was only using Tolis as a crutch on which she could not only lean on, but that would also give her the necessary exposure to move her career into the next level. Their prediction was that before long Gerekou would be but another name in the long list of the women that have betrayed the King.They were wrong. Under Angela’s wing Voskopoulos slowly started to gain his old confidence back. With her support and undiluted affection he managed to forget the horrors of his life with Julia. Instead of Voskopoulos being the crutch, it turned out that it was his by now new wife that was providing the springboard from which Voskopoulos made his leap back into the real world. It was Angela that helped him overcome the agoraphobia he had developed in the last stages of his years with Julia, and it was Julia that was his wife, lover, mother, friend and confidant all rolled into one, in the long process of recovery.Most importantly, in Voskopoulos’ eyes, Gerekou was the muse that was so evidently missing from his life, she was the women that rekindled his passion for music. Encouraged by Angela, he slowly realized he was foremost a musician, and as such he had no right to waste his talents crying over spilled milk. She wrote him love poems and he put them to music, he was writing feverishly for Angela, his Angela. Reluctant at first to make these songs public, Voskopoulos finally succumbed to Angela and in 1999 he realized his return to form, the quite brilliant “Matia Feggaria” album. The ball was rolling again, and the King was ready to reclaim his throne.(As a final note, they recently welcomed the birth of their first child, forever shutting the mouths of those that doubted their love and commitment to one another)
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