Letter to/from an Actress

It’s August 1950 in Nicosia, Cyprus. A young refugee girl writes a letter to one of her favourite Hollywood actresses. She won’t be twelve years old till the following month but changes her age to that of her older sister, presumably to appear more mature: seventeen.

Nicosia 26/8/1950

Dear Mrs Yvone [sic] de Carlo 

I have been following with great interest your successful [career? roles?] in the following films: “Brut Forse” [sic], “Slave Girl”, “The Lady Objects” and “Casbah”.

I shall very much apritiate [sic] if you will kindly send me your photograph signed by you. 

. . .

Seventy-one years later, on Christmas Eve of 2021, that letter was forwarded to My Palestinian Story seeking answers about its author. Regis Hoffman from the United States, who introduced himself as “a serious collector of stamps and especially envelopes which are referred to as ‘postal history’”, found the name of the sender in this blog and emailed me wanting to know who she was and what had happened to her after 1950. 

At the time the letter was written, Yvonne de Carlo was a successful Hollywood star thanks to her glamorous looks, and dancing and singing roles. Her more challenging A-list roles had yet to be performed and were to be but a few. By contrast, by the time the letter made its way to me, its author had retired from an extensive and illustrious career as one of the top dramatic actresses in both Cyprus and Greece, having performed on stages around the world. 

As I explained to Hoffman, although I’m a total bah-humbug when it comes to Christmas, receiving such a treasure about one of my nearest and dearest relatives was the best of Christmas gifts. The letter explained that its author was born in Jerusalem but that due to the war she had found herself in Cyprus as a refugee. Signed: Jenny Gaitanopoulou. 

Much has been written about her as an actress so I won’t be going into depth here. What is barely known is Jenny’s personal story growing up in the Greek community of Jerusalem, and later as a refugee in Cyprus and Jordan—what she was like as a little girl, as a young woman, and as a beloved member of our family. This is what this blog post will address.

Origins

Jenny is my maternal aunt, first cousin of my mother, Anna née Kassotou. Jenny’s mother, Nouna Marika (Nouna means godmother in Greek; we all called her that because she had christened my mother and others in the family) and my grandmother Vitsa were sisters. They were all—mothers and daughters—born and raised in Jerusalem where their families had been very close.

Jenny was the youngest of two daughters of Efthymios Gaitanopoulos and Marika Schtakleff. Efthymios, also born in Jerusalem in 1904, was the son of Dimitris and Erifeely Gaitanopoulos. (More about the Gaitanopoulos family and their history in Jerusalem in a previous blog post.) At age 16 he emigrated to the US and Canada and got into the insurance business. In 1931 he returned to Jerusalem where he was employed by Gresham Life, Legal and General Insurance becoming its Palestine representative. 

Marika (born 1912), like her eldest sister, Vitsa, attended the Dames de Sion school run by Catholic nuns in the Old City of Jerusalem, and after graduation got a job as a telephone operator at the phone exchange. Her aunt Zacharena Schtakleff, wife of well-known Palestinian photographer Daoud Abdo, was a supervisor at the telephone exchange and may have helped her get the job. 

When Efthymios returned from his American escapade, Marika was engaged to a manager of the Ottoman Bank in Amman. But Efthymios was so taken by her, he vowed to shave his moustache if she would marry him. Marika returned the sentiments, so much so that she broke off her engagement, to her parents’ consternation, and the two married in 1932. However, as the photographic record attests, the moustache stayed put. 

Their first daughter, Feely (Erifeely, named after Efthymios’s mother) was born in 1933. According to Jenny, when Feely was born her great-aunt Efrosini—wife of Christakis who was Efthymios’s paternal uncle—gave her a sizeable Russian gold cross covered in rubies. 

Jenny followed five years later on 27 September 1938. The family wanted to call her Marina—after Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, who incidentally was my mother’s inspiration for my name too. (It seems that my royal namesake was an influencer of sorts in her days.) But Marika objected, feeling that since her eldest daughter was given her mother-in-law’s name, this one should get her own mother’s name: Ευγενία/Evgenia (Eugenie—pronounced in French). So as not to leave the Gaitanopoulos out of the equation, she was also given the names of her father’s two aunts. She was thus officially christened Efrosini Calliope Marina Evgenia! Jenny quipped that Feely got the jewels and she got all the names in compensation. (I suspect Efrosini must have died by the time of Jenny’s birth so no more precious gifts could be bestowed.)

It was a diminutive of her maternal grandmother’s name that became her identification: Jenny. Eugenie was of Greek origin, hailing from Istanbul or Smyrna. Her father, Anestis Agathopoulos, with his wife Rosa, operated an itinerant theatrical troupe in which Eugenie starred in dramatic roles alongside a certain Madame Marie who played the male roles and was also in charge of the troupe’s wardrobe; the younger daughter Marika performed in lighter plays and revues. 

The Jerusalem stop was to be the last for the troupe. When Jenny’s grandfather John Schtakleff saw Eugenie on stage, he fell for her and asked for her hand which Anestis granted. They married in 1902 and as a result the troupe disbanded and the Agathopoulos remained in Jerusalem. My grandmother Vitsa was the couple’s first-born and her sister Marika the third of five children—the rest of whom were boys.  

With Feely three years younger than my mother Anna, and Jenny three years younger than Mum’s younger sister Mary, the four cousins were inseparable. (Mum’s eldest sister Vasso, six years older, was in a totally different age bracket and did not hang out with the young ones.) The close bonds continued till their adulthood and in their late years, so much so that in my eyes there is no distinction between Mum’s sisters and her cousins. I know that my cousins (Mary’s boys) feel the same. They have all been equally beloved aunts. 

Οn a Sunday afternoon in August 2005 Mary and Jenny shared reminisces of their grandmother Eugenie, while my mother whose speech had been impaired by a stroke offered brief editorial comments. With the exception of Feely who ended up in Canada with her family, the other three cousins who remained in Nicosia, would get together regularly. Gallons of tea were consumed around our dining room table or that of Aunt Mary’s, on weekend afternoons almost without fail, while stories of Jerusalem were told and retold. I eventually got to record them.

John and Eugenie lived on the second floor of a block of flats in the Greek Colony, only a few doors down from the Greek Club—the storied Leskhi (Λέσχη). Their eldest son, Coca, lived with his wife Athena on the ground floor of a building behind them, on a side street. John, ever the inventor, had installed some contraption—a lift of sorts—which enabled the transfer of the coffee Athena would brew to the seniors’ home simply by pulling on a rope. 

Eugenie was a very small woman, short, and with looks that none of her granddaughters could praise! She walked with a stick after she’d broken a leg which hadn’t been set correctly. 

There was a harmonium in their place which Eugenie played. The couple would entertain often and John would also bring bands to their home and dance with his wife. Jokes, music, and merriment were abundant.

The couple was frequent visitors to Zacharena and Daoud Abdo’s house. (Zacharena was John’s first cousin.) Their son Saba Abdo loved John and Eugenie’s visits. They were a funny pair and would always bring treats for the kids. 

During World War II, when Jerusalem was inundated with Greek troops, various Greek families would put up Greek officers in their homes. Mary and Jenny vividly remembered a particularly handsome one by the name of Triantafyllos whom Eugenie hosted with much enthusiasm. He was so taken with her hospitality that he cautioned her that should she ever find herself in Greece, she shouldn’t expect reciprocation to the same standards. 

However, neither Jenny nor Mary were particularly fond of their grandmother, who, most of the family agrees, lacked strong grandmotherly feelings. Jenny thought of this petite uncomely woman as rather dour and inordinately fastidious, imposing order in her home strictly. Shoes had to be removed before entering the home—no exceptions. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mary wasn’t tasked with polishing her grandmother’s shoes every time she visited her. 

Eugenie was a heavy smoker. She smoked Player’s which Jenny remembered coming in cylindrical tins. Using the foil from the inside of the box, Eugenie would construct a silver ball that got progressively larger. Jenny didn’t think her grandmother loved her because she was naughty (whatever that meant) but nevertheless Eugenie promised her namesake she could take her silver foil ball after her death. 

Sometime around 1942 the family gathered all the children at Coca’s house to break the news: their grandmother Eugenie was gone. The first words out of little Jenny’s mouth were: “I want the ball!”

Life in Katamon, Jerusalem

When Jenny was born, the Gaitanopoulos lived in lower Katamon, the quarter of the new city of Jerusalem (ie outside the walls) adjacent to the Greek Colony. They rented a flat in a fourplex which was sandwiched between two roads that converged to the Abdeen roundabout. They had the ground floor flat on one side while in the other lived the building’s owners, the Kattans. Above the Kattans lived a Muslim family and above the Gaitanopoulos a policeman by the name of Munir Abu Fadel, with his mother and niece. 

Mum often talked about going down the katefóra, the downhill road, from the Kassotis house in upper Katamon, then turning left at the Semiramis hotel and from there making her way to the Gaitanopoulos home to meet up with her cousins. 

Like the rest of the young ones in the family—and most of the other Greeks—Jenny first attended the kindergarten set up by the Greek Community of Jerusalem in a small building within the compound of the Greek Club. Their teacher, Lefkothea, is fondly remember by all. Primary and secondary education was provided by the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in the Old City. 

Jenny would take the bus to school. Jerusalem was generally a safe place where young kids would go about by themselves, unescorted by adults. However, every now and then there was the odd incident. 

Upon returning from school one afternoon, as Jenny got off the bus, she was approached by a man, smartly dressed in a dark suit, who asked her in Arabic (which was the language they used in the street) where Katamon was. Jenny pointed to the direction. But he objected insisting it was the other way. Jenny’s young brain (at the very most she was nine years old at the time) didn’t think to ask: If you know, then why are you asking me?! She was stubborn too so she also insisted. 

“Come, I’ll show you”, he said and took her by the hand. They crossed the street and started walking in the opposite direction from where Jenny knew Katamon was. They walked for quite a while and Jenny started getting tired and restless. The man was squeezing her hand and kept going. As time wore on she began to feel uncomfortable and was bothered by his hand-holding so she protested: “Let me go!” He refused and squeezed even tighter. It was getting late, and she was all sweaty. By now they reached an area that was sparsely populated as dusk was falling. She started crying, not out of fear, she assured me, but in anger and irritation. It just so happened that her aunt Lilika lived in that area and as they passed her house Jenny mentioned it to the mystery man. That seemed to give him a scare and he at last let her go. “If you go this way”, he said, “you’ll get to the Dajani grocery”. She did, she knew the way from Dajani’s, so she finally returned home in the dark. 

As she approached their house, she found the street full of cars and their place lit up and full of people, amongst them their upstairs neighbour, the policeman. She looked for her mum and found her in tears and agony. Jenny was afraid she’d be told off because she had lost her bus pass. But of course the pass was a non-issue. Her parents were enormously relieved to see her; they hugged and comforted her, and sent her to sleep.

The following morning, her father woke her up and asked her to get dressed because they were going somewhere together. He took her to the police station where she was asked about the incident and she gave them a full account of her misadventure. Some young men were paraded in front of her for identification but it wasn’t them—the man had been older. 

For the rest of the school year, she was accompanied to school by a policeman, and everyone was very attentive of her. Only later did she realise the gravity of what had happened. 

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Jenny’s not-so-warm feelings about her grandmother did not prevent her from inheriting Eugenie’s thespian talent. When in 2023 I interviewed Photoula Louisidou, another Greek Jerusalemite and close family friend who was a year older than Jenny, she wanted the record to show that Jenny’s first-ever performance was a short “production” performed by the two of them. It was a song in Greek about a porcelain doll which was fought over by two girls. Naturally it had a happy ending with the girls agreeing that the doll could have two mothers (how avant-garde!) who would take good care of her and feed her soup and dolmadhes. At the age of 86, Photoula proceeded to sing the entire song for me, to her daughter’s and my amazement. 

Jenny’s second performance, continued Photoula, was with the latter’s younger sister Stasa in a play of somewhat increased… sophistication in that it had more than two actors and a bit more of a plot: a poor family visited at Christmas by a lady bearing gifts—no doubt the lady must have been Greek! 

Going to school, playing in the street, visiting friends and relatives, attending events at the Greek Club, going swimming at Bat Yam (south of Jaffa), and with the occasional kidnapping attempt thrown in—it was all part of Jenny’s life in Jerusalem in the 1940s. 

War in Jerusalem

However, as Jenny wrote to Yvonne de Carlo, war came knocking on their door causing them to flee in search of safety. The bombing of the Semiramis hotel, by Jewish militia in early January 1948, was the death knell of Katamon: that part of the neighbourhood emptied instantly. The Kassotis, whose house was two doors away from the Semiramis and had sustained some damage, moved in with the Gaitanopoulos who lived inside one of the security zones set up by the British.

There were curfews and blackouts which the adults presented to the little ones —Mary and Jenny—like a fairy tale so they wouldn’t be too scared. The girls were just happy to be together.

The families stockpiled provisions and as more and more of the neighbours fled, they began making preparations for a possible departure of their own. The silverware was polished so it could be stored, and the paintings were removed from the walls. What if the bombing and shelling that had become a daily occurrence caused the large painting of Pygmalion to fall off the wall and break the candlesticks?! How trivial all these concerns would soon appear to them all…

A few weeks into this, Gresham wrapped up their operation in Palestine and Efthymios decided to take his family to Egypt. They took a taxi to Lydda airport, skirting the fighting that was going on, and with a sigh of relief boarded a small plane to Cairo. It was only when they arrived in Egypt that the parents informed their daughters that they would not be returning to Jerusalem. 

The Gaitanopoulos stayed in Cairo, in a Greek hotel, for about eight months. When Gresham offered Efthymios a choice of postings, he opted for Cyprus. The family was familiar with the island. They had visited on holiday a few times and had loved their time there. They’d load the car on the Egyptian ship Fouadieh, disembark in Limassol, and drive up to the mountains. On one occasion they had taken my mother with them; she always talked about the wonderful time they’d had in Platres. 

Another factor in their choice of Cyprus was that the Kassotis, my mother’s family, to whom they were so close, had in the meantime found refuge on the island when they too eventually fled Katamon in May 1948. So the two families were reunited. For a period of time they shared a house in Nicosia, mainly in order to support the Kassotis who were left destitute after losing their Jerusalem home and living. Efthymios, who was fortunate to have a good job, was very supportive to all the family. When his father-in-law, John Schtakleff, fell ill not long after moving to Cyprus from Jerusalem, Efthymios covered all of his medical costs as well as the funeral expenses when John died in June 1953.

In the Diaspora

The cousins—my mother Anna, her sister Mary, Feely and Jenny—continued to be close. Coming from the much more cosmopolitan milieu of Jerusalem, they scandalised the conservative society of Cyprus by having male friends, even boyfriends, with whom they’d go on outings (bike rides, picnics, parties) unchaperoned—unheard of at the time. 

To continue their education both the Gaitanopoulos girls as well as Mary were enrolled in the American Academy of Nicosia. Their classmates were of Greek, Turkish, and Armenian backgrounds. 

Jenny was an average student but still managed to skip a year by studying the required syllabus over the summer of 1952. She graduated in the summer of 1955 at sixteen years old. Her report shows that French lecture was her best subject while her lowest grade was in bookkeeping. She also got good marks in cooking, history, and psychology. 

In the Academy Echo, the school’s graduation publication, one of Jenny’s classmates wrote a few lines about each girl. This is what she had to say about Jenny:

Jenny Gaitanopoulou from Palestine where she will return for a year, then cultivate her undoubted ability in dramatics in Greece. Her stories and acting from the CBS [later CyBC – Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation] have entertained many. She is the Treasurer of the class. 

(I can’t help but wonder how someone who did so poorly in bookkeeping became class Treasurer!)

However, Jenny’s graduation took place under a cloud. In January of that year, disaster had struck: Efthymios, the father she adored, had died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 49 years old. 

~ Slideshow: Jenny and her family in Cyprus ~

Marika found it hard to cope without a partner in life and in 1956 she remarried and moved to Amman with her new husband who was also from the Greek community of Jerusalem. It was not a good match and the marriage only lasted for a few years. 

The girls followed their mother to Jordan. Jenny first got a job with UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) and worked in East Jerusalem for eight months, spending her weekends in Amman. With the Israeli occupation, Jerusalem was now split into East and West. East Jerusalem, which included the Old City, was under the Jordanians. The neighbourhoods where Jenny had grown up in were occupied by Israel and became known as West Jerusalem. They were inaccessible to her while she was there, with a dead zone separating the two sections. 

As an UNRWA employee, Jenny would visit Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war. They were destitute, living in tents with no ground covering, and the only available work was in factories where wages were low. The families, which were typically large, were given cards to shop for necessities, and Jenny’s job was to visit them and ensure they had everything they needed. 

For another couple of years she worked in Amman for a section of the American Embassy that managed the funds of the Point Four Program. The programme was a US foreign-aid initiative set up in 1949 by US president Harry Truman to share American technological, scientific, and managerial expertise with developing nations. 

While living in Amman, she was introduced to an older man who wanted to marry her but she wasn’t in the least interested. She felt pressured so she took off and went to Cyprus on her own where she lived with Yiayia Vitsa. She got a job at the CyBC doing various radio programmes including children’s. That’s where she met director Evis Gavrielides who was to become her life partner. He was staging a play and wanted her to act in it. Jenny returned to Amman, resigned her job with the Americans, and told her mother, who was in the midst of a divorce, that she’d stay on in Cyprus. Marika followed her some time later having dissolved her marriage in 1960. They moved to a flat in the Mitsides building, off today’s Eleftheria Square.

Cyprus Becomes Her Main Stage

From that point on, Cyprus became Jenny’s second home and the one identified with her acting career. 

It is impossible to give in a few short paragraphs a complete account that will do justice to such a highly distinguished career that spanned over six decades—nor, as I stated in the introduction, is that the purpose of this post. But for the benefit of the uninitiated, here’s an attempt at a summary. 

In 1960 Jenny attended the Greek Music Academy of George Arvanitakis in Nicosia, graduating with distinction. She began her collaboration with CyBC (the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation) doing various programmes including children’s and radio programmes as well as theatre productions staged for TV. As mentioned above, that’s where she met Evis Gavrielides, one of the most significant figures in Cyprus theatre, who became her teacher and in 1966 also her husband. 

In 1962 she began her studies in Athens with legendary Greek theatre director and teacher Karolos Koun and until 1966 she was a key member of his Art Theatre (Theatro Technis). Returning to Cyprus, she was a principal member of the CyBC theatre troupe from 1969 to 1971. In 1975 she joined the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC) where for 25 years she performed roles ranging from contemporary theatre to ancient drama. 

In parallel she participated in productions of the Art Theatre in Athens, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, and the National Theatre of Greece, performing on stages worldwide, from the ancient theatre of Epidavros to Rome’s Colosseum, to Mexico, Chile, Tokyo, New York, and beyond. 

I will never forget the thrill of seeing her on stage in New York’s City Centre in October 2000. I had by that time moved to California and I flew to New York especially. Her niece Corinna (Feely’s daughter) also flew in from Canada for a moving reunion. Jenny was touring with the National Theatre of Greece in a production which the New York Times reviewed as follows (6 Oct 2000): 

Few productions have so hauntingly conveyed the brutal isolation of those who would be king as the National Theater of Greece’s exquisitely staged “Oedipus Rex”, directed by Vassilis Papavassileiou. . . . This hypnotic re-creating of Sophocles’s masterwork, a visually poetic staging that never sacrifices sense of feeling to style, examines the deepest wounds inflicted by the public exposure of private horrors.

Jenny’s Jocasta was “superb”. The reviewer closed with the following:

The moment I cannot shake off, however, occurs some moments earlier. At that point, Ms. Gaitanopoulou’s Jocasta is center stage, looking out beyond the audience, listening to an innocent-seeming account of the discovery of an abandoned infant many years before, a story that confirms her worst apprehensions. 

The sequence of expressions that move across Ms. Gaitanopoulou’s face, from abrupt recognition to fear of existential nausea, is almost unbearable. It is the face of someone who realizes that life has no more comforts to offer. . . .

If only Yvonne de Carlo had any inkling of what would become of her young fan….

Jenny has won many awards: She was honoured with the prestigious Marika Kotopouli Award (1993), the THOC Award (1995), the Doros Loizou Award, the Tefkros Anthias Award, and the Theodosis Pierides Award. In 2002, she was honoured by the Friends of the Theatre Group for her contribution to the development of Cypriot theatre, and in 2005 by the Aglanjia Folk Theatre. In 2016 she received the Republic of Cyprus Award for Excellence. 

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She withdrew from theatre as her memory and eyesight began to let her down. In 2015 she lost her beloved Evis, with whom she had a passionate albeit turbulent relationship. She felt the loss deeply and remained at home with her memories and her feline companions.

But the theatre was not ready to give up on her just yet. Sixteen years after her retirement, director Marios Mettis came knocking on her door. He had wanted to work with her and proposed that she repeat a role from her past: the title role of “Clytemnestra or the Crime”, a dramatic first-person monologue by Marguerite Yourcenar (Clytemnestre ou le Crime). But how could Jenny cope with learning lines in a monologue no less, given her failing memory? Mettis inserted in his adaptation both a role for himself and for another person who would double as Clytemnestra’s daughter Ifighenia as well as Clytemnestra’s defence attorney (played by Christina Constantinou). In what I thought was a stroke of genius, the latter role also served logistically as a prompt should Jenny stumble with her lines.

The play was a resounding success and elicited rave reviews. I missed the premiere on 25 November 2017 having already returned to my San Francisco base but I was fortunate to be around for the dress rehearsal. I was awed by my aging aunt’s enduring talent—and the production as a whole.

Family in Cyprus

Marika, Jenny’s mother, died in January 1971, aged 58—a big loss for the family. I still remember her vividly as a beautiful and loving aunt who’d always come to our home with her knitting basket.  

Jenny’s sister, Feely, married a Greek Jerusalemite and after living in Jordan and Africa, they eventually settled in Montreal, Canada, where they raised their two children: Antonis and Corinna.

Jenny remained very close to Yiayia Vitsa till the very end. When my grandmother was in hospital in 1992, Jenny would visit her every night after her performances. One particular night, after the performance, Jenny and Evis took a foreign guest out to a local tavern for dinner. Suddenly Jenny realised it was getting late and she wanted to visit Aunty Vitsa. It was past visiting hours but the doorman allowed her in (perhaps recognising her). Yiayia’s IV had run out and she had started breathing her last. Jenny thought it was as if she had waited for someone to come so she wouldn’t die alone. 

As a member of our family, Jenny was beloved by all. Today, as the ravages of time have stripped away all the trappings of youth, health, and fame, I have come to focus more clearly on Jenny’s essential qualities: kindness, love, modesty, humility, and generosity. It was these qualities that made her particularly beloved by the public as well. 

Not having had children of her own, Jenny channelled her motherly love into the family’s children as well as her numerous pets. As the only girl in the Cyprus branch of the family (Corinna has always lived in Canada), I felt particularly close to her. Her unconditional love, care, and support were constants in my life, from my childhood years. She would take me to CyBC for her children’s programmes, she was there when I first had my heart broken as a young woman, she always cheered me on in my adventures and believed in my abilities; she was always happy to see me. She was also incredibly generous: my Nicosia flat is full of her gifts of various furnishings and household goods, which I treasure as mementos of this special woman. In addition she entrusted me with the honour of keeping her photo and document archive.

Twilight Years

On 18 September 2025 I gave a presentation in Nicosia on the Greek Community of Jerusalem. I spoke about history, about the community in general but also about my own family—their own history in Palestine, their experiences, their stories. Jenny attended the presentation, sitting in the front row that was reserved for her and the few other Jerusalemites remaining in Cyprus. As I spoke, I could see her out of the corner of my eye: looking frail, with her face often averted away from the screen (her poor eyesight made it hard for her to see the projected slideshow). Upon finishing, I found her still seated alone in the front row while the rest of the audience were on their feet, milling around. I wondered how much she had absorbed with her diminished cognition. She seemed rattled: to my surprise she had been shaken to the core. Listening to the story of her life and that of her family and community shared in a public forum was so emotionally intense for her that she couldn’t stand up on her feet. 

The following day I went to visit her at the old people’s home where she now lived. Once again I wondered how much her waning memory had retained. Surprised again: not only she remembered but she was still shaken up by it. Her confused mind hadn’t realised that it was me who gave the presentation—it was all so out of context—but she was very clear of what she’d witnessed: “That was my life up there!” she exclaimed. “How could she [me, the speaker] know so much detail about it? What she said was exactly what I lived through! I’ve been trying to tell people but they don’t understand…” There could have been no more precious reward for my efforts. 

Ten days later I visited her on her birthday. She still talked about the presentation. The story morphed and changed, but the essence was the same. It was the story of her life and it had been shared for the world to know. 

Today was Jenny’s birthday. I feel confident she wouldn’t have been alone. Her old theatre colleagues never forget her. In the past few years, a nice routine of sorts had been established for the day. Earlier in the afternoon, the “boys” arrive with a birthday cake: director and producer Kyros Rossides and set and costume designer Stephanos Athienitis. They blow out candles, they share cake, and they chat. Later on a second contingent arrives, often before the first has departed: Jenny’s bestie, dramatic actress Annita Santorineou, who’s been standing by Jenny’s side in these difficult years. She’s typically accompanied by various combinations of other friends and colleagues. Another birthday cake, more candle blowing, gifts, munchies, merriment. Jenny enjoys it, always maintaining her characteristic humility. 

Scenes from Jenny’s birthdays – 2024 & 2025:

Sadly I have missed this year’s party as I’ve stayed put in San Francisco this summer. This blog post is my gift to Jenny sent from afar with all my love. ❖