Biography

Alekos Tzanetakos (1937–2010) was a Greek film actor and screenwriter. He was born in Maniatika, Piraeus, in 1937. He studied at the Karolos Koun School of Theatre Arts and the Lykourgos Stavrakos Higher Film School. He made his theatre debut in 1957 with the troupe of Alekos Sakellarios and Christos Giannakopoulos in the play "Our People", while with the Thessaloniki Regional Theatre of Kostas Hatziskos he also appeared in classical repertoire roles. He first appeared on the big screen in Grigoris Grigoriou's comedy The Abduction of Persephone (1956), written by Iakovos Kambanellis. Later he participated in several films such as Elias of the 16th Century, My Dad the Tendyboy, The Crazy Fifty, Some Prefer the Cold, Law 4000, etc. In the early 1980s he retired from the theater and became involved in writing scripts for video films in which he starred. Tzanetakos was also a racing car and motorcycle driver, taking part in the Panhellenic championships and races of the time and scoring many victories. The actor suffered from serious health problems in the last years of his life, culminating in abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery in November 2009. He passed away at the age of 73 in April 2010.