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Telly Savalas

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Telly Savalas
File:Telly 02.jpg
Telly Savalas
Born
Aristotelis Savalas
Spouse(s)Katherine Nicolaides (1948-1957)
Marilyn Gardner (1960-1974)
Julie Hovland (1984-1994)

Telly Savalas (January 21, 1922 – January 22, 1994) was a prominent Emmy Award-winning American film and television actor whose career spanned four decades. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1963 for his supporting role in Birdman of Alcatraz. He also starred with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages and The Scalphunters. For the course of his long career, he was best known for his work playing the title role in the popular 1970s crime drama, Kojak, and for also playing Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He co-starred with Angie Dickinson in the 1971 film, Pretty Maids All in a Row.

Biography

Early life

Savalas, the second oldest of five children, was born as Aristotelis Savalas in Garden City, Long Island, New York to Greek American parents Christina Savalas, a New York City artist, and Nick Savalas, a Greek restaurant owner. 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 School of General Studies, Savalas took a variety of courses such as English, radio and psychology. At that time, he fell in love with radio and television, which led to his interest in acting. He graduated in 1948. 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 28, Savalas's next job was that of a popular radio talk show host at a coffeehouse in New York City.

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 as a heavily religious and very sadistic convict 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, worked with composer and producer John Cacavas on 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 before and after Kojak

Throughout his life, Savalas was a charismatic[citation needed] 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.

Savalas released several records, the most remembered were his version of "If", that was #1 in Europe for 10 weeks in 1975, and Don Williams' "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend", that topped the charts in 1980. Many people do not know[citation needed] 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.

In the late 1970s Telly Savalas narrated three travelogues titled Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth, Telly Savalas Looks at Aberdeen and Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. These were produced by Harold Baim and were examples of quota quickies which were then a requirement that cinemas in the United Kingdom had to show a share of films produced in the United Kingdom alongside those produced by Hollywood.[1][2]

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Savalas appeared in commercials for the Players' Club Gold Card.

Phil Hartman did a parody of Savalas' Players Club comercials, entitled "The Player With Yourself Club" on Saturday Night Live. The line from the parody was "If You're a player, you need to be where the action is, and when theres no action you have to create it yourself, thats why im telling you about the Player with yourself club."

Character actor

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 The 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.

Kojak

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]. Kojak was also the first show ever to feature a bald officer whose actor was also bald, in reality, as this police drama was the answer to seven successful 1970s cop series: Ironside, Hawaii Five-O, McMillan and Wife, The Streets of San Francisco, Police Woman, The Rockford Files and Switch. 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 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 portrayed Kojak in the following shows;

  • The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) (TV) The pilot for the Kojak TV series.
  • Kojak (1973–78) TV Series
  • Kojak: The Belarus File (1985) (TV)
  • Kojak: The Price of Justice (1987) (TV)
  • Kojak: Ariana (1989) (TV)
  • Kojak: Fatal Flaw (1989) (TV)
  • Kojak: None So Blind (1990) (TV)
  • Kojak: It's Always Something (1990) (TV)
  • Kojak: Flowers for Matty (1990) (TV)

Telly's brother George played the recurring role of Detective Stavros. And also starring on Kojak, was an unfamiliar actor, former train conductor, bartender 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. In addition, Christina's death in 1989, drew Savalas & Dobson real closer, as Dobson received word all about his co-star's mother's death, while being hard at work on a TV series, working alongside Savalas' stepdaughter. Dobson said of his old colleague prior to introducing himself to the screen icon was, "The moment I met Telly Savalas, we shook hands and our eyes met and locked and the chemistry was there. It was just there and it proved, once we got him filmed." On filming Savalas' lollipops, Kevin also said, "The lollipops scene took place in the fifth show, when we're in the office and we're about to do the scene, he said, 'I need something, you know?' And here's a guy standing over there with the Tootsie Pop sticking out of his shirt. Give me a Tootsie Pop, huh? Telly, they flipped it to him, doing it like this, unwrapped it, stuck it to him and his head, his mouth and became a lollipop cop." Prior to the show's cancelation, Dobson said, "I just couldn't understand why? It was like, oh, it's time now for me." 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 (similar to the role he played on Knots Landing), instead of a police officer.

Personal life

The Savalas brothers (l-r): Teddy, Telly, Gus & George

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 creditors. She also urged him to move 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. They married in 1960. The following year, Marilyn gave birth to a daughter, Penelope (born 1961). A second daughter, Candace, was born in 1963.

In 1969, while working on the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Savalas met (Sally Adams). Several years later, Sally gave birth to their child Nicholas Savalas (born February 24, 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, as is his goddaughter, (Jennifer Aniston of Friends fame, born February 11, 1969).

In 1977 during his last season of Kojak, he met and fell in love with Julie Hovland, a travel agent from Minnesota. They were married in 1984 and had two children together, Christian and Ariana. Julie and Telly were married until his death on January 22, 1994. Christian Savalas legally changed his name to Christo Savalas in 2002. Christo Savalas is a singer and songwriter. Ariana Savalas is an actress and singer. Julie Savalas is an inventor and artist.

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.

Deaths of relatives and his own last days

After Savalas came back to reprise his role on Kojak in the 1980s, he started losing close relatives. George Savalas, his brother who played Detective Stavros on the original Kojak series, died in 1985 of leukemia; he was 60. And 4 years later, Christina, his mother who had always been his best friend, a supporter, and a devoted parent, died in 1989. Later that year, Savalas was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He refused to see a doctor until 1993, when he didn't have much time to live. While fighting for his life, he continued to star in many roles, including a recurring role on The Commish. Savalas died on January 22, 1994, one day after his 72nd birthday. He died of complications of prostate cancer at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel in Universal City, California. He was interred at the George Washington section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. Julie's and Telly's family were joined by the many mourners at a funeral in a Greek Orthodox Church, including those of, Angie Dickinson, Nicolette Sheridan, Jennifer Aniston, Sally Adams, Frank Sinatra, Don Rickles, and several other Telly's Kojak co-stars, Kevin Dobson, Dan Frazer & Vince Conti. His first two wives, Katharine and Marilyn, arrived with their own children, as did his third wife, Julie. Brother Gus attended the funeral, but longtime friend Burt Lancaster didn't attend the funeral because of his own failing health. He died just 9 months after Savalas' death.

Movie roles

File:Blofeld.JPG
Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld and George Lazenby as James Bond in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service

His silver screen career usually involved him being cast as the villain in such films as:

Other movie roles where Savalas didn't play the villain were:

Template:S-awards
Preceded by Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series
1974
for Kojak 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actor in a Drama Series
1975
for Kojak 		Succeeded by
Robert Blake
for Baretta, Telly Savalas
for Kojak
Preceded by
Telly Savalas
for Kojak
 Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actor in a Drama Series
1976
for Kojak
with Robert Blake
for Baretta 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Official James Bond villain actor
1969 		Succeeded by

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Telly Savalas.
  1. ^ http://www.jonbounds.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/jon/brum/kojak
  2. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2006/09/28/telly_savalas_inside_out_feature.shtml
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