Dimitris Horn (March 9, 1921 – January 16, 1998) was a Greek theatrical and film performer. He is regarded probably as the greatest Greek actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 of modern times.

Biography

Horn was born in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 in 1921, the son of playwright Pantelis Horn

Pantelis Horn

Pantelis Horn was a Greek naval officer and playwright, one of the few Greek writers of the early 20th century who devoted themselves solely to theatre. He produced works in the naturalist style....

. He studied at the Drama School of the National Theater of Greece, where he made his stage debut in 1941. During his career, he co-operated many times with the National Theater and made personal stage groups with actors such as Mary Aroni

Mary Aroni

She was born in 1914, in Athens, Greece. She first appeared in theatre in 1935 and she mainly acted in theatre. She made only four cinema appearances in her acting life. She lived in...

, Alekos Alexandrakis

Alekos Alexandrakis

Alekos Alexandrakis was a famous Greek actor. He was known for his theatrical work as well as work in film and television. He died of lung cancer....

 and Ellie Lambeti

Ellie Lambeti

Ellie Lambeti was a Greek actress.-Family:Born in 1926 in Greece,her father owned a Greek tavern in the village of Vilia Attikis. She had six siblings. Her maternal grandfather was a Captain Stamatis who fought together with Kolokotronis against the Turks in 1821, when the modern Greek democracy...

. The latter was also his life companion from 1953 to 1958.

He established from an early stage a reputation as "the best actor of his generation," giving outstanding performances in classics such as Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" by Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...

, "Richard III

Richard III (play)

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...

" by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, "Dom Juan

Dom Juan

Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue is a French play by Molière, based on the legend of Don Juan. Molière's characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who would later become familiar to opera goers as Don Giovanni and Leporello...

" by Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

, "Enrico IV

Enrico IV

Henry IV is a play by Luigi Pirandello. A study on madness with comic and tragic sides, it has been translated into English by Tom Stoppard and others...

" by Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...

 etc.

Of lesser important was his screen work; he disliked cinema and starred in only ten films, most notably The Counterfeit Coin

The Counterfeit Coin

Κάλπικη λίρα is a Greek comedy film produced in 1955, written and directed by Giorgos Tzavellas and starring Dimitris Horn, Ilya Livikou and Vassilis Logothetidis...

(1954), and A Girl in Black (1956). Later he married shipping heiress Anna Goulandri, and became the first director of the Greek State Radio and Television after the restoration of democracy. He died in 1998.

Filmography

• Athens by Night - I Athina tin nychta 1962
• Woe to the Young - Alimono stous neous, 1961
• A Thief's First Chance - Mia tou klefti, 1960
• We Have Only One Life - Mia zoi tin echoume, 1958
• The Girl in Black
  The Girl in Black
  A Girl in Black is a 1956 Greek dramatic film by Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis starring Dimitris Horn and Ellie Lambeti. The film takes place on the Greek island of Hydra, where two Athenian visitors become entangled in local feuds after one of them falls in love with a local girl.It was one...
  
  - To Koritsi me ta mavra, 1956
• The Counterfeit Sovereign - Kalpiki lira, 1955
• Windfall in Athens
  Windfall in Athens
  Windfall in Athens is a 1954 Greek comedy film directed by Michael Cacoyannis. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:Mina, a beautiful, care-free salesgirl for a milliner's shop, is robbed by two urchins while she is enjoying a Sunday morning swim...
  
  - Kyriakatiko xypnima, 1954
• The Drunkard - Methistakas, 1950
• Applause - Hirokrotimata, 1944
• Voice of the Heart - I Foni tis kardias, 1943