Paxinou, Katina

Paxinou, Katina [née Konstantopoulou] (1900–73), Greek actress, who in 1940 married as her second husband Alexis Minotis, under whose direction she frequently acted. Trained as a singer, she made her début as an actress in 1924, and was first seen in New York in 1930, one of her roles being Clytemnestra in Sophocles' Electra. In 1932 she joined the Greek National Theatre company, playing Clytemnestra again in Aeschylus' Agamemnon and becoming the company's leading lady. She translated and directed several English-language plays, among them Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, in which she played the title-role, in 1932. One of her finest parts was Mrs Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, in which she performed annually for six years beginning in 1934. She was also much admired as Phaedra in Euripides' Hippolytus, Lady Windermere in Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, both in 1937, Goneril in King Lear, and Mrs Chevely in Wilde's An Ideal Husband, both in 1938. In 1939 she made her first appearance in London as Sophocles' Electra, followed by Gertrude in Hamlet. In the following year she gave her first performance in English, also in London, as Mrs Alving, and in 1942 played Ibsen's Hedda Gabler in English in New York. After some years in films she returned to the stage in New York in 1951 as Bernarda in García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, a part in which she was seen in Greece in 1954, appearing there in 1957 in Fry's The Dark is Light Enough. She was seen again in London in the 1966 World Theatre Season, playing Jocasta in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and the title-role in Euripides' Hecuba.