Thanasis Vengos

Thanasis Veggos 29 May 1926 3 May 2011 was a Greek actor and director born in Neo Faliro Piraeus He performed in around 130 films predominantly comedies in the 1950s 1960s and 1970s starring in more than 50 among them He is considered one of the best Greek comedy actors of all time His famous comedic catchphrase was Καλέ µου άνθρωπε My good man Veggos first appearance in a film was in Windfall in Athens produced by Mihalis Kakogiannis which premiered in Athens as Kiriakatiko Xsipnima on 11 January 1954 Nikos Koundouros gave him a role in Magiki polis in 1955 His first major role was in Psila ta heria Hitler Hands Up Hitler 1962 and continued many more films For his acting in What did you do in the war Thanasi 1971 the public of Thessaloniki apotheosized him and the movie won three awards at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival He often played everyman characters struggling to get by but he has also played antiheroes he has acted in pure dramas and on stage in the comedies of Aristophanes His characters were often selfnamed Thanasis He often worked with directors Panos Glykofridis and Giorgos Lazaridis In 1995 Theo Angelopoulos cast Veggos and American actor Harvey Keitel in Ulysses Gaze In 1997 in the role of Dikaiopoli he appeared in a live performance at the ancient Epidaurus theater In 2000 he survived a car accident involving a collision with a train He later participated in advertisements promoting road safety A documentary of his life whose title translates as A Man for All Seasons was made in 2004 He always did his own stunts including the most dangerous ones like hanging from a rope tied to a balcony fifty feet above a pavement without anything to break his fall walking through a glass door or falling down a stone staircase head first During the Golden Sixties of the Greek film industry he made his most popular comedy films such as the sequel of Secret Agent 000 Papatrehas Enas trellos Vengos and many others also with surrealist humor most of them by his own company ΘΒ Comedies ΘΒ Tainies Geliou which founded in 1964 In 2008 Veggos was appointed Commander of the Order of the Phoenix by the President of Greece Karolos Papoulias On 3 May 2011 he died at 710 am He had been hospitalized at the Red Cross hospital in Athens since 18 December 2010 He is survived by his wife Asimina and two sons He will always be remembered in the more than 120 films and more recent documentaries that he starred in The phrase τρέχει σαν το Βέγγο English translation runs like Veggos has been adopted into common usage in the Greek language since nobody has run more or faster than Veggos in his many slapstick comedies