Eleni Prokopiou

Biography

Eleni Prokopiou (Greek: Ελένη Προκοπίου, Athens , 1939 – Athens, September 27, 2026) was a Greek actress, dancer, and choreographer. She rose to prominence through her appearances in films from the golden age of Greek cinema. Between her film debut in 1960 and 1972, she appeared in a total of 23 movies. She held leading roles in many of these—particularly when the part required dancing—as she was a dancer herself and choreographed her own routines for some of the films. She began studying dance at the age of six alongside Martha Karagianni at the dance school of Loukia Sakellariou-Kotsopoulou, who had established her own academy at the Athens Conservatoire. As children, she and Martha Karagianni performed together at the Greek National Opera. They graduated in the late 1950s. She formed a dance duo with Vangelis Seilinos, performing together in both theater and film. From 1960 to 1965, the Seilinos-Prokopiou duo performed in dance numbers at most of the capital's revue theaters. She also formed an on-screen duo with Giorgos Pantzas, appearing together in five films. She starred in films of every genre—musicals, comedies, and dramas. Early in her career, she appeared solely as a dancer in both theater and cinema; specifically, she had dancing roles in three films: "Sunday’s Date" (1960), "Athens by Night" (1962), and "Betrayed Love" (1962). She subsequently appeared in Nikos Koundouros’s "Young Aphrodites" (1963), a film that achieved international success. This was followed by "The Emir and the Wretch" (1964), in which she played Gulinar, a stunning princess from an Eastern emirate. Next came "The Face of the Day" (1965) and "Rendezvous in the Air" (1965)—where she performed as both a dancer and an actress, thereby becoming part of the Finos Films family—followed by "And the… 14 Were Wonderful!" (1965). In 1966, she played leading roles in five films: "Paranomoi Pothoi" (Finos Film), "To Syrtaki tis Amartias", "Pente Chiliades Psemata" (Finos Film), "Oi Kyries tis Avlis" (Finos Film—the scene featuring the water from the broken tap, alongside Kostas Prekas, is now considered a classic), and "Agapi pou den Svinei o Chronos" (1966). In the following years, she starred in lower-budget films featuring actors such as Nikos Stavridis, Tasos Giannopoulos, Fragkiskos Manellis, Tzeni Roussea, Dionysis Papagiannopoulos, Alekos Tzanetakos, Nikos Dadinopoulos, Nikos Rizos, and Sotiris Moustakas, among others. Specifically, these films included: "O Gambros mou o Proikothiras" (1967), "Mini Fousta kai Karate" (1967), "Orkizomai eimai Athoa" (1968), "O Boufos" (1968), "Enas Ippotis me Tsarouchia" (1968), "O Stavros einai Poniros" (1970), "Omorfopaida" (1971), "O Paragios mou o Ralistas" (1971), and "Dakrya gia enan Aliti" (1971). Her final film (for Finos Films) was "To Koroidaki tis Principessas" (1972), in which she played a naive actress and dancer. She was carrying some extra weight in the film, as she was already married and two months pregnant, while also undergoing hormone therapy due to pregnancy complications. Throughout these years, she appeared regularly on stage. She made her theatrical debut as a dancer at the age of 14 at the Olympia Theatre in Piraeus, partnering with the famous dancer of the era, Dimitris Ivanov. She passed away on September 27, 2026, at the age of 87.