Marinella

Kyriaki Papadopoulou was born in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, on 19 May 1938. Her parents were Greek refugees whose families had lived in Constantinople (Istanbul) before the population exchange; English Wikipedia describes them as of Pontic origin. She was the fourth and youngest child of a family that was poor but full of music. They gathered around the gramophone to sing, and her father taught the children the steps of the waltz and the tango. From about the age of four she sang on the children's radio programme Paidiki Ora, where she once sang a Schubert song, and as a girl she appeared in children's theatre and advertised Thessaloniki's Melka shops, earning her first pocket money. She grew up through the Second World War, the Axis occupation and the Greek Civil War.

At 15 she put her budding stage career aside to finish school. Her real training came on the road: at 17 she joined the touring theatre company of Mary Lorens as an actress, alongside young performers such as Kostas Voutsas and Martha Karagianni. When the troupe's singer fell ill on tour, she replaced her, singing Sofia Vembo's O anthropos mou and the wartime song Malagenia, and became the company's lead singer. In 1956 she moved to the Military Theatre of Thessaloniki because it paid better. Details of any formal musical study have not been made public.

At the Panorama club in Thessaloniki in 1956 the songwriter Tolis Harmas named her Marinella, after his song of that name. In August 1957 she met Stelios Kazantzidis through the bouzouki player Stelios Zafeiriou, and in November 1957 the pair moved to Athens. Their first recordings, Nitsa Elenitsa and I proti agapi sou eimai ego by Giorgos Mitsakis, came out on 78 rpm discs in 1957. Kazantzidis and Marinella became the leading duo of Greek popular music, touring the United States and Australia, singing Hadjidakis and Theodorakis in 1961 and appearing together in around ten films between 1960 and 1966.

After their separation in 1966 she rebuilt her career as a soloist with help from Giorgos Katsaros, Giorgos Zambetas, Giannis Markopoulos, Christos Leontis and Mimis Plessas. Stalia stalia (1968) was her first big solo hit, and Anoixe petra from the film musical Gorgones kai mages (1968) made her a star. In 1970 she placed fourth of 38 countries at the international song festival in Rio de Janeiro. In 1971 she was a guest on the BBC show Nana Mouskouri with the Athenians. In 1973 she was the first Greek singer at MIDEM in Cannes, and in 1974 she represented Greece at its first Eurovision Song Contest, in Brighton, with Krasi, thalassa kai t' agori mou, placing eleventh.

With Kostas Hatzis she recorded the live album Recital (1976), one of the best-selling Greek albums ever, and the platinum To Tam-Tam (1980). In April 1980 she played two concerts at Madison Square Garden. She modernised the Greek nightclub show with costumes, dance and lighting. Later highlights include the Athens Concert Hall (1998), a stadium concert for more than 25,000 people (1999), the Mazi tour and platinum live album with George Dalaras (2002 to 2003), the Athens 2004 Olympic closing ceremony, the gold album Tipota den ginetai tychaia (2005), Marinella, The Musical (2010 to 2011), a revival of Recital with Hatzis (2013), Marinella meets Vembo (2014), Xarchakos's Moonlight Sonata (2015) and concerts at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (2020) and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus (2022). Across her career she released dozens of solo albums; English Wikipedia counts 66.

Marinella married Stelios Kazantzidis on 7 May 1964; they divorced in September 1966. She later married the singer Tolis Voskopoulos (sources give 1973 or 1975), reportedly in jeans with a few close friends; they divorced in 1981. Her only child, Tzortzina Serpieri, was born in 1973 from her four-year relationship with the Greek equestrian champion Freddy Serpieri, whom she did not marry. She later said that being seen singing while pregnant and unmarried took courage in the Greece of that time, and that the public accepted her exactly as she was. She was very close to her daughter, to her son-in-law Timos Daskalopoulos, to her grandchildren Melina and Dimitris, and to her sister Loula, with whom she lived for many years. She said she did not drink much, did not smoke after quitting overnight around four decades earlier, and had no taste for gambling.

Marinella rejected being called a myth or a legend. In a 2024 interview with LiFO she said she had never felt like one and that labels meant nothing to her, adding that she never sat and listened to her own records. She credited her longevity to struggle, hard work and stubbornness, and warned against becoming conceited or overestimating one's abilities. She said the night life could ruin a person but that this depended mainly on the individual, and that she had resisted its Sirens and remained a good person. She supported children's and disability charities throughout her career, singing benefit concerts for ELPIDA (children with cancer) and AROGI.

Marinella is widely regarded as one of the greatest female voices in Greek popular music, admired for her vocal range, distinctive timbre, breath support and expressive phrasing. Her duets with Kazantzidis remain a reference point for second-voice singing in laiko, and George Dalaras said she made her second voices sound like first voices. She was Greece's first Eurovision representative, the first Greek singer at MIDEM, and a pioneer of the staged, theatrical Greek nightclub show. Greek media also credit her with bringing an androgynous look of short hair and flared trousers to the stage. Generations of singers, from Haris Alexiou to Antonis Remos and Natassa Theodoridou, shared stages with her, and many called her a mother figure of Greek song.

Platinum and gold certifications for albums including Recital, To Tam-Tam, Mazi (with George Dalaras, platinum 2003) and Tipota den ginetai tychaia (gold). Fourth place of 38 countries at the 1970 international song festival in Rio de Janeiro. Life & Style magazine's Performer of the Year in 2005, 2007 and 2009. A tribute evening, 50 Years of Marinella, organised in Thessaloniki on 20 March 2007 under the auspices of Greek ministries and the city. An honour at the Arion Music Awards on 29 October 2007. Named ambassador of the AROGI charity in 2001 and lifelong Artist for ELPIDA in January 2020.

Marinella appeared as a singer in around two dozen Greek films (Greek Wikipedia lists 18 film appearances), from The Mayoress (1960) with Kazantzidis to Krima to boi sou (1970). Highlights include O pio kalos o mathitis and Gorgones kai mages (both 1968) and O blofatzis and I Pariziana (both 1969). On stage she appeared in the Theodorakis revue Omorfi poli (1962), several revues, Marinella, The Musical (2010) directed by Stamatis Fasoulis, and Marinella meets Vembo (2014). On television she sang the score of Kostas Koutsomytis's series I prova tou nyfikou (1995) and played the troupe leader Marika Souez in his series Ystera irthan oi melisses (2000). A French television special, Reine de nuit a Athenes, was devoted to her in 1972.

On 25 September 2024, at 86, Marinella collapsed during the third song of her concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. She was taken to Hygeia hospital with a severe, widespread hemorrhagic stroke and spent weeks in intensive care. She left hospital on 21 January 2025 but never fully recovered. Her family announced that she died at her home on 28 March 2026 at 18:00, aged 87. No other medical cause was announced. Her body lay in state at the chapel of Saint Eleftherios beside the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens on 31 March 2026, and her funeral there was attended by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and figures from the arts and politics. Haris Alexiou and George Dalaras gave the eulogies. She was buried privately at Kifisia Cemetery, near the family home, while her musicians played her songs. Instead of wreaths, the family asked for donations to Floga, the association for children with cancer.