Rena Vlachopoulou

Vlachopoulou was born on 28 July 1923 in Corfu, the Ionian island known for its music, its bands and its opera-loving public. She sang as a teenager in Corfu, and in 1939 she was noticed singing in a variety show in Athens. From 1943 she sang at the Pantheon with the composer Giannis Spartakos, who wrote jazz songs for her, and the press called her «the queen of jazz». Her voice was strong, her rhythm perfect, and her stage presence enormous.

From singing she moved to the theatre, and especially to the επιθεώρηση, the Athenian revue, a show of songs, sketches and political jokes. There she learned the comic timing that made her famous: the raised eyebrow, the sudden change from sweetness to fury, the line thrown away at exactly the right moment. In the 1960s cinema discovered her, and she became one of the biggest stars of the golden age of Greek comedy, alongside actors such as Lambros Konstantaras, Dinos Iliopoulos and Kostas Voutsas.

She went on working in the theatre and on television for decades, and never really retired; audiences loved her until the end. She died in Marousi, Athens, on 29 July 2004, a day after her eighty-first birthday, and the Greek press called her the great lady of comedy.

In her films Vlachopoulou almost always played the same kind of woman, and audiences adored her for it: a strong, talkative, practical Greek woman who argues, schemes, sings and in the end puts everything right. Her comedy was physical and musical at the same time, and nearly every film gave her at least one song.

In Μερικοί το προτιμούν κρύο (Some Like It Cold, 1963) she sings «Σαν ξημερώνει Κυριακή», a duet with Dinos Iliopoulos, to music by Mimis Plessas, who wrote many of her film songs. In Η χαρτοπαίχτρα (The Gambler, 1965) she is a wife who cannot stop playing cards, opposite Lambros Konstantaras as her desperate husband. Η βουλευτίνα (1966) and Η ζηλιάρα (The Jealous Woman, 1968) followed, and Βίβα Ρένα (Viva Rena, 1967) and Η Ρένα είναι οφσάιντ (Rena Is Offside, 1972) were built so completely around her that they carry her first name in their titles.

These films show the Greece of the 1960s: new flats in Athens, holidays by the sea, money worries, marriages arranged and refused. Seen today, they are also a lesson in spoken Greek, full of expressions, idioms and the rhythm of real conversation.

Greek television channels still show Vlachopoulou's comedies, especially on holidays and summer afternoons, and many Greeks can quote her lines by heart. For a learner, any of her films is a good way to hear natural, fast, funny Greek, and her songs from the films are easy to find. Watch Η χαρτοπαίχτρα first: the story is simple and the jokes need few words. She is remembered together with Aliki Vougiouklaki and Thanasis Veggos as one of the faces of the golden age of Greek cinema, and in Corfu people still speak proudly of the island girl who made the whole country laugh.

• Before she was a comic actress she was a jazz singer: in the 1940s the Athens press called her «the queen of jazz».
• Two of her films, Βίβα Ρένα (1967) and Η Ρένα είναι οφσάιντ (1972), have her own first name in their titles.
• She learned her comic art in the Athenian revue, a mix of songs, sketches and satire.