Her innocent gaze, her expressive eyes, her well-formed mouth, her childlike voice, her gift for attracting the camera, brought her from her childhood to the studios of Greek cinema, when there was not even the most basic infrastructure and the directors of photography were looking for a little electricity and strong lamps. Smaroula Yiouli is no accidental case for Greek cinema. She was the first child prodigy, became a leading lady before she came of age, a beloved and admirably reliable actress in Finos, and in her prime she left the cinema for what she loved: the theatre.
Today marks ten years since her death (7 March 2012), and it is an opportunity to remember her important artistic career, her most important moments in the first tentative steps of Greek cinema, but also her generosity, her love for young actors and her love for her husband, Vangelis Livadas, whose unexpected death cut off her will to live.
The Voice of the Heart
Born in Thessaloniki in 1930, Smaroula Yiouli showed her vocation for acting in difficult times from childhood. She graduated from the Drama School of Dimitris Rontiris and continued to improve her acting skills by studying dance and singing. He appeared in the cinema at the age of 12, in the second Finos Film film “The Voice of the Heart”, made in 1943 by Dimitris Ioannopoulos, alongside the great theatre man Emilio Veakis. Even before she finished her acting studies she joined Mimi Fotopoulos“ company and in 1949 she performed in the play ”Quarantine in Eros“, while in 1952 she starred in ”Joyful Youth".
Come to Uncle
In 1950, however, she would have her first success in cinema, with the adorable comedy by the then rookie writer Nikos Tsiforos “Come to Uncle”, starring alongside Mimis Fotopoulos and Nikos Stavridis, in perhaps the best role of the latter's career, playing a rebellious young man whose uncle wants to set him straight and marry him off to a nice girl. Of course, the still-childlike Smarula. Two years earlier he had starred in the drama “Lost Angels” alongside Irini Papa and Fotopoulos and immediately afterwards (1949) in the occupation drama “Last Mission”, with Vassilis Diamantopoulos and Nikos Tzoyas, both films being directed by Tsiforos.
The Rifle
Smaroula Yiouli was already the main protagonist of Finos, while in the theatre she had begun to chart a remarkable course, next to Madame Katerina. In 1953 she would star again alongside Mimis Fotopoulos in one of the best films of Greek cinema, the immortal comedy “To Sofferaki” by Giorgos Tzavellas, playing a poor working girl who falls in love with an incurable reveler. A role that will make her one of the Greek audience's favourite leading ladies. A justifiably huge success that sold close to 200,000 tickets in its first screening, ranking first among the 22 films of the year. It should of course be noted that “first screening” means tickets sold only in Athens and Piraeus, while it is almost impossible to calculate how many hundreds of thousands of tickets were sold in the rest of Greece. Something that applies to all films of the old Greek cinema.
Only for You
Smaroula Yiouli would star in a total of 23 films, until 1965, when she would take the decision to stop acting in the cinema to devote herself to the theatre. During these 12 years, she would appear in several notable films, always with remarkable performances. Some of her - and personal - successes include “Glendi, Money and Love” (1955), with Dinos Iliopoulos, Nikos Rizos and Vassilis Avlonitis, in the classic comedy “The Coffee Girl” (1956) alongside the exquisite Georgia Vassiliadou and Mimi Fotopoulos, “Poor Kids and Money” (1961) with Stavridis and Fotopoulos, “Theodore and Dikanos” (1962) with Fotopoulos as her strict father, while in 1965 she would appear for the last time on the big screen in the drama “Only for You”.
Theatre and only theatre
In 1958 she would marry the theatrical producer Vangelis Livadas, a theatre man of those who offered much to the theatre industry. She quickly acquired her own company, staging important performances, while she gave special attention to Greek theatre, presenting plays by Greek writers such as Spyros Melas, Pavlos Paleologos, Dimitris Psathas, Georgios Roussos, Giorgos Tzavellas, Kostas Mourselas, collaborating with the best directors of the time.
Making the musical fashionable
In the 1980s she would take another turn in her theatrical career, as she unfolded her talent in musicals, staging expensive productions, with the well-known plays ’Chicago“, ”The Woman of the Year“, ”Dudes and Dolls“, ”Hello Dolly“ and ”Sweet Charity“ in the ultra-modern ”Smaroula“ theatre, built in her honour by her husband Vangelis Livadas. Since the 1990s, she thinned out her appearances on the stage due to some health problems she was facing, while the last performances she starred in were Neal Simon's ”Mismatched Couple’ and Eduardo de Filippo's “Filumena Marturano”.
With her retirement from the stage, she will, together with her husband, throw her weight on young actors, believing in their talent, supporting their efforts, winning the recognition and respect of many leading actors of the years to come.
In the curtains of the heavens
On 27 March 2011, a fire, probably caused by a heater, in their house in Glyfada, will leave Vangelis Livadas dead, while Smaroula Yiouli, in a state of shock, as she had tried to save him from the flames and while she had breathing problems, refuses to separate from him. The death of her beloved husband will cost her, dearly, will have a serious impact on her health and almost a year later she will breathe her last breath to follow him to the magical quintessence of the heavens.
(Photo from the film “Theodore and Dikanos”)
Harry Anagnostakis
