Telly Savalas

[Psaltis]

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Telly Savalas

Telly Savalas was the second oldest of five children born to Greek American parents Christina Savalas, who was a New York City artist, and Nick Savalas, a Greek restaurant owner, as Aristotelis Savalas in Garden City, New York. He had his first job at age 10 as a newspaper boy, when he constructed a shoeshine stand made of crates. When he entered Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park, New York, he initially only spoke Greek, yet he learned English and graduated in 1940. After graduation from high school, he worked as a lifeguard, but on one occasion, was unsuccessful at rescuing a man from drowning; this would haunt Savalas for the remainder of his life. When he entered Columbia University, Savalas took a variety of courses such as English, radio and psychology, later studying at Manchester University in England. At that time, he fell in love with radio and television, which led to his interest in acting. He graduated in 1946. Savalas also gained life experience with a three-year stint (1943-1946) in the Army during WWII, working for the U.S. State Department hosting the "Your Voice of America" series and then at ABC News before beginning an acting career in his late 30s. Before he would get to any of that, starting at age 30, Savalas's next job was that of a popular radio talk show host at a coffeehouse in New York City. On one of his shows, he invited actress Ava Gardner, to guest-star, on the air, and the two "clicked" as they both enjoyed the longest conversation about a party Ava would ever have.[citation needed]

Pre- and early television work

At first, Telly was an executive director and then senior director of the news special events at ABC, Savalas then became an executive producer for the "Gillette Cavalcade of Sports", where he gave Howard Cosell his first job. Savalas first acted on the TV show Armstrong Circle Theater (1959) and then on the series "The Witness" as Lucky Luciano, where actor Burt Lancaster "discovered" him. Savalas was cast opposite Lancaster's idealistic D.A. in the melodrama The Young Savages (1961). He moved on to play a string of heavies, winning acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the sadistic Feto Gomez in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). After portraying Pontius Pilate in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), he chose to remain completely bald and this signature look, somewhere between the comic and the ominous, stood him in good stead in the years that followed.

Savalas was memorable in The Dirty Dozen (1967), the seminal ensemble action film by director Robert Aldrich, and reappeared as a different character in two TV movie reprisals. He also appeared as star in two classics, Kelly's Heroes (1970), and The Scalphunters (1968), a western that revealed the absurdity of racism during the Civil Rights movement. His career was transformed with the lead role in the celebrated TV-movie The Marcus Nelson Murders (CBS, 1973) where the pop culture icon of Theo Kojak was born. Savalas polished his hard-boiled image to a brilliant sheen over the long run of Kojak (CBS, 1973-1978). During those years, he co-bought racehorse Telly's Pop, recorded many albums, including "Telly" (1974) and "Who Loves Ya, Baby" (1976) and directed and wrote the film Beyond Reason (1977). After the very popular series ended, Savalas reprised the Kojak persona in several Kojak-based TV-movies, furthering his public canonization. One of Savalas' brothers, George Savalas (known professionally for a time simply as 'Demosthenes') played the character 'Stavros', a sensitive , wild-haired, quiet, comedic foil to Kojak's street-wise humor in an otherwise dark dramatic TV series.

Life after Kojak

Throughout his life, Telly Savalas was a charismatic creative writer, director, and producer. He won the Emmy, the Peabody, and Golden Globe Awards. In 1990, the city of New York declared "The Marcus-Nelson Murders" as the official movie of New York City, and awarded Telly with the Key to the City. He was also a strong contributor to his Greek Orthodox roots through the Saint Sophia and Saint Nicholas cathedrals in Los Angeles, and was the sponsor of bringing electricity in the '70's to his ancestral home, Yeraka, Greece. His mother, Christina, was a world recognized contemporary of Picasso, and he himself released several records, the most remembered was his version of "If", that was #1 in Europe for 10 weeks in 1975.

Many people do not know that Telly was a world-class poker player, degreed in psychology; a motorcycle racer, and lifeguard. He appeared in over 80 movies. In his capacity as Producer for "Kojak", he gave many stars their first break, as Burt Lancaster did for him. He was considered by those who knew him a generous, graceful, compassionate man.

Prior to being a successful movie star on the big screen, Savalas became one of the most charismatic and beloved character actors of all time during the late 1950s and the 1960s, where he made his very first guest-starring role on an episode of Armstrong Circle Theater, in fact, he appeared on the show, twice. He also made 54 more guest-appearances between 1959-1967 in most of these shows, Naked City, King of Diamonds, The Aquanauts, The Untouchables, Burke's Law, Combat, The Fugitive, Bonanza, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The F.B.I., and the classic Twilight Zone episode Living Doll among many others. He also had a recurring role as Brother Hendrickson on the popular crime drama series, 77 Sunset Strip, as his career already launched.

Undoubtedly Savalas' most famous role was that of the tough detective Kojak on television. Lt. Theo Kojak was a bald New York City detective who had a fondness for lollipops and whose trademark line was, "Who loves ya, baby?" Reportedly the lollipop gimmick was added in lieu of having the character smoke. Savalas himself was quitting smoking and the lollipops may have been his own trick for defeating his habit[citation needed]. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, two years in a row, and won the Emmy in 1974. He was also nominated for Golden Globes, four times in a year, and won between 1975 and 1976. In 1974, prior to starring on Kojak, he also became a singer, proving that he sang just like that of Frank Sinatra, his old pals (Don Rickles and Angie Dickinson) would even watch him sing the songs that Sinatra did. In 1978, after a 5 season run on the air, and 111 episodes, CBS had decided to cancel the show due to low ratings and Savalas wasn't very happy about the show's demise.

Telly's brother George played the recurring role of Detective Stavros. And also starring on Kojak, was an unfamiliar actor, former train conductor and waiter from the Queens suburb of Jackson Heights, Kevin Dobson, who played the role of Kojak's trusted and closest young partner, Det. Bobby Crocker. The on-screen chemistry of both Savalas & Dobson would become an instant success of the 1970s, and they remained good friends even after the show's cancellation. For most of the 16 years after Kojak, Dobson kept in touch with Savalas and maintained a close, personal friendship until Savalas's death. Dobson also said of his old colleague that he was sucking lollipops on the fifth episode after he looked for it at the time Savalas had a Tootsie Roll pop in his shirt. He realized that Savalas was a bald detective sucking lollipops. In addition, Dobson also went on to gain greater fame in the popular prime time 1980s soap opera, Knots Landing. As a result of Dobson, working on another successful series, he did not appear in the majority of the Kojak TV movies. The only time that both Savalas & Dobson would later be reunited for one last time on-screen, was when they both appeared in the 1990 movie Kojak: It's Always Something where Kevin's character was a lawyer, instead of a police officer.

Savalas was married three times. In 1948 right after his father's death from bladder cancer, Savalas married his college sweetheart, Katherine Nicolaides. They had a daughter, Christina (named after his mother), (born 1950). In 1957, after Katherine filed for divorce after she found out from Telly that he was running away to flee from debtors. She also urged him to moved back to his parents' house during that same year. While Savalas was going broke, he founded the Garden City Theater Center in his native Garden City, New York, area. While Savalas was working with future actors, Marilyn Gardner, a theater teacher, met and fell in love with him. The couple was married in 1960. The following year after the wedding, the couple gave birth to a daughter, Candace (born 1961). A second daughter, Penelope, was born in 1963.

In 1969, while working on the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Savalas met another woman (Sally Adams), and left his family behind. He met Adams in England while on vacation starring in that movie, and just several years later, after she gave birth to Nick (born 1973), Gardner filed for divorce from Savalas in 1974. His stepdaughter, (Adams' daughter, Nicollette Sheridan of Knots Landing and Desperate Housewives fame, born November 21, 1963) is an actress, and his goddaughter, (Jennifer Aniston of Friends fame, born February 11, 1969), is also an actress. His son Nick did voice acting and produced the voice of the character Stavros on an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

In 1977 during his last working days of Kojak, he met Julie Hovland, a travel agent from Minnesota, and the two started dating. By then he was 60, they were married, and had two more kids: Christian & Ariana.

Telly Savalas was the best friend of fellow Greek-American actor, John Aniston, and he served as god father to his daughter, Friends actress, Jennifer Aniston.

[O Tizimis]

Telly Savalas was the man! What a great under rated actor.

[Prokomenos]

I always enjoyed watching Telly Savalas in his movies, was not too crazy about Kojak though.

[Megale]

Kojak was pretty good, especially for its time. A great movie that has two Greeks is "The Dirty Dozen" with Savalas and John Cassavetes (mostly known as a director working outside the Hollywood system).

A Gree-American actor to look out for is Micheal Chiklis, who plays the top cop in "The Shield."

The first movie I saw with Savalas was "My Palikari." Actor Micheal Constantine ( played the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ) played his brother.

[pankration]

Grossly underrated actor. Kojak was way ahead of its time with its realism, gritty look and atypical star. Savalas brought style and character to television and movies and must be commended for being proudly Greek in everything he did. He is sorely missed.

[Prokomenos]

Absolutely I agree he was indeed one of the greatest actors in his times.