Marika Kotopouli

Marika Kotopouli was born in Athens in 1887, literally on stage, as the pains of childbirth caught her mother while she was performing in a play. As a tiny baby she appeared on stage in her parents' tour of the play "The Carriage of the Alps". Her father was a troupe leader, head of the Proodos Drama Troupe. Her first role was at the age of five, where she played a schoolgirl. Until 1901 she appeared alongside her parents in various plays, including the classical repertoire, in many Greek cities, Smyrna and Constantinople together with her twin sisters, Fotini Kotopoulis-Loulis and Chrysoula Kotopoulis Myrat, also actresses . 

From 1908, she had her own troupe, and theatre, the "Kotopouli Theatre". In this period she developed an intense artistic rivalry with another young actress, Cybele. The two had very devoted fans, and during the National Schism, their rivalry acquired political overtones also: whilst Cybele was favoured by the Venizelists, Kotopouli became a symbol of the royalist camp. 

Since then Kotopouli established herself as the great lady of the Greek scene. In the summer of 1924, when Haile Selassie visited Greece as regent of Ethiopia, Kotopouli and her troupe were chosen for the performance of Agamemnon given in his honor at the Herodeum.

In her long career, Kotopouli distinguished herself as a dramatist, as 'Electra' in the Oresteia, as 'Margarita' (in Faust) by Goethe, as 'Electra' by Hofmannsthal. Her performance in Xenopoulos' Stella Violanti was also special.

She was romantically linked with various men, as well as women in her youth, while the most famous among them was the politician Ion Dragoumis, with whom she created a stormy relationship, after Dragoumis' separation with Penelope Delta. She was addicted to morphine, which worried Iona Dragoumi, who tried to dissuade her from using it while he was with her in Athens, and she was known for the timbre of her voice, "an alloy of gold and silver", as it was called, as well as the fact that he uttered incredible profanities and cursed. 

She was a royalist with passion, so much so that in ´20, after the attempt against Venizelos, supporters of Venizelos destroyed her theater in Omonia. Nevertheless, she hid communists and partisans in her theater during the civil war and mediated in the palaces for the return of her colleagues who were in exile.

She died in 1954 and the funeral of the great actress was attended by a huge crowd.  The burial of Marika Kotopouli took place in the area intended for the burial of prominent men in the 1st Cemetery of Athens, and she is the only woman buried there. 

In this biographical exhibition you can discover the life and dramatic repertory of the actress through find photographs, sketches and portraits, programs of theatrical performances as well as scores.