Dimitris Horn

Horn was born in Athens in 1921 into a family of the theatre: his father, Pantelis Horn, was a well-known playwright of the early twentieth century, whose plays about Athenian life were staged by the leading companies of the day. The boy grew up among actors and writers and trained at the drama school of the National Theatre (1937–1940). He made his stage debut around 1939 and acted through the hard years of the war and the German Occupation, when the theatres of Athens stayed open and were among the few places where people could forget hunger for an evening.

After the war he quickly became a leading man. Tall, slim and always well dressed, with a warm, slightly ironic voice, he was the opposite of the loud comic actors who dominated popular theatre, and audiences saw in him a modern, European kind of gentleman. In the 1950s he worked closely with Elli Lambeti, the most admired Greek actress of her generation; together they formed a theatre company and appeared in plays and films that are still remembered as a golden moment of Greek acting.

He went on acting on stage for the rest of his life, in Greek and foreign plays, often at the head of his own company. He made fewer films than many of his colleagues, preferring the theatre, but each of his screen roles became well known. He died in Athens on 16 January 1998, after several years of illness.

Horn's fame in cinema rests on a small group of films from the 1950s, the golden age of Greek film. In Η κάλπικη λίρα (The Counterfeit Coin, 1955), directed by Giorgos Tzavellas, a fake gold sovereign passes from hand to hand through four stories; in the last of them Horn plays Pavlos, a poor painter, and Elli Lambeti his wife Alice. In Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα (The Girl in Black, 1956), directed by Michael Cacoyannis (Michalis Kakogiannis) and shot on the island of Hydra, he plays Pavlos, a writer from Athens who falls for a young island woman played by Lambeti; the film was in competition at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

In Μια ζωή την έχουμε (We Only Have One Life, 1958), again by Tzavellas, he is a timid bank clerk who, for the love of a woman, spends money that is not his, and Μια του κλέφτη... (1960) won him the best actor award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. In all of them his style is the same: natural, understated, never shouting, with perfect diction. At a time when much Greek acting was theatrical and exaggerated, this restraint felt new.

The theatre, however, was his real home. For more than half a century he played comedy and drama, Greek and foreign authors, often as head of his own company. Young actors went to see him to learn how to speak a line clearly and simply, and many of them later said that his performances taught them what elegance on stage means.

The easiest way to meet Horn is to watch his films, which Greek television channels still show, especially on holidays, and which can be found with subtitles. Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα is the best place to start: a short, beautiful film, with the island of Hydra in black and white and Horn and Lambeti at their best. Μια ζωή την έχουμε gave its title to a phrase every Greek still says when deciding to enjoy the moment. In Greek theatre schools Horn is still the model of good diction and of a calm, modern style of acting, and books and television documentaries tell the story of his partnership with Elli Lambeti. A learner can pick one short scene, listen to how clearly he speaks, and repeat his lines aloud.

• His father, Pantelis Horn, was a playwright, so theatre was the family business.
• Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα, in which he starred, was in competition at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.
• The title of one of his films, «Μια ζωή την έχουμε», is now an everyday Greek saying.
• He made relatively few films, because he always preferred the stage.