Stavros Paravas

Stavros Paravas (Greek: Σταύρος Παράβας, Athens, 15 April 1935 - 15 September 2008) was a Greek actor with anti-dictatorship activities, for which he was exiled to Gyaros during the Ioannides dictatorship.

He was born in Tourkovounia and his parents were from Asia Minor. In order to help his family financially, he started working from a young age, doing various errands.

The first person to notice his artistic talent was his singing teacher at the fifth high school of Athens where he was studying. Before finishing school and despite the reactions of his family, he enrolled in the drama school of Kostas Michaelides, who, assessing his talent, kept him in the school without paying tuition.

At the Rex Theater, in the play “Seven Years of Itching”, Paravas asked the playwright to write him an anti-dictatorship mantinada. After a number of performances, he was arrested inside the theater by military police in civilian clothes.

He was arrested and tortured in 1974 during the dictatorship of Ioannides and exiled to Gyaros. Stavros Paravas remained in Gyaros until the fall of the junta and was one of the last 44 exiles to leave hell.

He married a British woman and had three children with her: Vanessa, Martha and Jonathan. The sudden death of the latter shook him mentally.