Dimitris Imellos has created unforgettable characters in theatre, cinema and television, always putting his soul and body. With talent and scientific consideration. As a theater actor, he had the pleasure of being the first recipient of the Horn Award in 2001 for his role as Motamor in Tony Kushner’s Frenapati directed by Stathis Livathinos and presented at the Porea Theatre.
As a teacher, he has continuously taught his students in national, state and private theater schools in Greece since 1998 (among others in the Directing and Acting Workshop, and in the Iasmos and Delos drama schools).
On Monday, December 16, Dimitris Imellos died prematurely, stricken with cancer at the age of 57, after receiving respect and admiration in the field of theater, unlimited love and recognition in recent years he decided to make television, taking ownership for it. three seasons of the role of the fatherless policeman Antonis Fragiadakis in “Sasmos” against his beloved TV partner Maria Protopappa.
His talent soon blossomed, as he had the full honor of being the first person to receive the prestigious “Horn Award”. Unfortunately, the extent of his loss is made even worse by the fact that he left at his creative and mature age and at the height of his stage career. Art loses a faithful servant, who still had much to give.
My heartfelt condolences to all his family, colleagues and friends.
Theater as a way of life
“Personally, I’m not as concerned about the exposure as the way of working. I am not 25 years old, I have 25, very many, years in the theater. That’s why I didn’t do TV when I was younger, even though I had suggestions. I didn’t want this to define my choices – but also my son’s choices, consciously. When he was little, I didn’t want people to know me, to go to school and tell you that you are a son and so on,” said Dimitris Imellos in STEP and Myrto Loverdou in the summer of 2022 on the occasion of his role as Odysseus in the staging of Sophocles’ “Aedan” in Epidaurus under the direction of Argyris Xafis.
Today, young Phoebus Imellos, a director in the field of cinema, will certainly have a lot to say about his father’s continuous and substantial stamp on the stage of the theater as well as on the screen.
In fact, Dimitris Imellos was a “discreet”, basically an actor, far from the clarity of the thunderous presence. He went with the theater and cinema, leaving the glamor of television aside for many years. The decision to continue acting came late in his life, after his 20s and he was fully conscious.
“I had nothing to do with the arts, that’s why I had a great resistance. I didn’t need my parents to tell me not to be an actor. I was my own father.”
He himself told BIMA: “I had no connection to the arts, that’s why I had a lot of resistance. I didn’t need my parents to tell me not to be an actor. I was my own father. Over time, however, things happened that brought me to the theater. It wasn’t enough for me to hear that I had talent – I saw it more as a convenience. I was not finding value and development. When I started to see the theater as a science, as a complete reading of life, my resistance disappeared. Otherwise he is playing ball in the neighborhood and otherwise in Barcelona. I didn’t want theater to be an art but also a science.”
Livathinos and Vogiatzis
Dimitris Imellos was born in Kypseli in 1967 to wealthy parents and was the eldest son of a large family with three other children, a boy and two girls. With a lawyer father, he studied Law at the Athens Law School, in the Theater course at the Vassilis Diamantopoulos Theater Workshop and Directing and Acting at the Russian Academy of Theater Art in Moscow in the directing department of Leonid Efimovich Heifits, a choice in which his the teacher of Stathis Livathinos.
When he returned to Greece, he collaborated with Anna Kokkinou, Stavros Tsakiris, Sotiris Hatzakis, while his path was connected with Lefteris Vogiatzis and of course with Stathis Livathinos on the Experimental Stage of the National Theater (he was a member of the founders of the Experimental Stage, the staff of the National Theater led by Livathinos). He also collaborated with Nea Skeni and Lefteris Vogiatzis in 8 productions, as well as other Greek and foreign directors in theater and cinema.
Dimitris Imellos met Lefteris Vogiatzis in 1998 when he auditioned for “Perses” on behalf of Ethnikos.
“Both Lefteris Vogiatzis and Stathis Livathinos are in demand. Maybe I could make other choices but I think I’d be bored.”
In an interview with BIMA, he said: “I always work with the same people and it is not easy to adjust the work. Both Lefteris Vogiatzis and Stathis Livathinos are in demand. I could make other choices, maybe, but I think I’d be bored. Whereas there is at least suspense, interest, effort in the way I work and the result is that, one way or another, you don’t leave without exposure.”
Dimitris Imellos in the role of police investigator Porphyris Petrovich in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” directed by Dimitris Tarlow, staged at the Poria Theater (November 2023).
Dimitris Imellos excelled in theater productions, such as: “Iphigenia in the Land of the Bulls”, “Oedipus at Colonus”, “A Great Horner”, “Perses”, “Antigone”, “Frenapati” (Horn Award), “Nostalgos”, “Love Struggle Agonos”, “What never ends”, “Medea”, “Moliere” (award for male performance from the magazine “Athinorama”), “Dream”, “The Tartufos”, “The Idiot”, “At the Bottom”, “The Last Today”, “Erotokritos”, “Amphitryon” etc.
He has also participated in over 30 Greek short films and feature films as well as television series.
“When I got the Cup Award, everyone fell for me”
In the cinema, we remember him in carefully selected roles from the film “Aliosa” with Thanasis Skroubelos in 1999 to “Fonissa” with Eva Nathena in 2023, which was to be his last appearance on the big screen.
Meanwhile, Dimitris Imellos appeared in the wonderful “Beautiful People” with Nikos Panagiotopoulos (2001) and in “Para konto, para ponto, para tricha” with Stella Theodorakis (2002), in “Delivery” with Nikos Panagiotopoulos (2004 ), in “Sweet Memory” by Kyriakos Katzourakis (2005) but also in the commercial comedy “Bank Bang” by Argyris Papaditropoulos (2008).
“The Tailor” by Sonya Lisa Kenderman.
He continued to choose his appearances carefully with the dramatic comedy “Ap’ ta kokala vgalmena” by Sotiris Goritsa (2011), a participation that earned him the 2nd male role award of the Hellenic Film Academy, the family drama “Happy Birthday” with Christos. Georgios (2017) and the psychological-social drama “Her Work” by Nikos Labot (2018). the big screen.
Dimitris Imellos appeared in 2007-08 in the ALPHA series “To 10” directed by Pigis Dimitrakopoulos. “When I received the Cup award, everyone fell for me. I didn’t do any series – just ’10’. And that’s because Pigi Dimitrakopoulou delayed the filming to finish “The Idiot”, where I played. In “10” – a masterpiece, unsurpassed – it was all the theater of Greece” he said himself.
In the series “Sasmos” by Maria Protopappa
Although he had little confidence in the recognition offered by television (he still participated in the series “Karyotakis”, “My name is Vangelis”, “The Killing”, “I’m sorry”, “Life in the grave”, ” Sasmos”, “Agios Paisios – From Farasa to Uranos”), in the years after the pandemic, his participation in the successful “Sasmos” was decisive for his communication with the public. “It makes me happy and that moved more than half the time instead of saying ‘congratulations’ they say ‘thank you’. It means that I offer something – that’s when I say that the other person might need it, and that’s how I’m satisfied and find the strength to continue.” was a comment on CÉIM.
We say goodbye to him knowing that he offered the best – unforgettable roles from any medium (theatre, film, television) no matter who remembers him.