Famous celebrities and Greece go together like the Greek Gods and Mount Olympus.
Let’s take a look at 5 famous celebrities with a piece of Greece wrapped up in their unique life story. Is it possible that the Greek Gods and Goddesses brought them to Greece for a special purpose?
1. Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Lord Byron is one of the most famous travellers to have ever visited Greece. Byron was a lover, a hero and poet. In 1823 he aided representatives of the Greek independence movement who had risen up against the Ottoman Empire by raising some much needed money to help refit Greece’s fleet. Unfortunately on his way to join them he died from a terrible fever at the age of only 36. This tragedy happened in Missolonghi, a municipality in western Greece.
For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.
~ Lord Byron ~
My Muses do no care a pinch of rosin
About what’s called success, or not succeeding:
Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;
Tis a “great moral lesson” they are reading.
I thought, at setting off, about two dozen
Cantos would do; but at Apollo’s pleading,
If that my Pegasus should not be foundered,
I think to canter gently through a hundred …
~ Don Juan, 1819-1824 ~
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
~ Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto 4, stanza 178. ~
Could the Greek Gods have played a part in sending Byron to Greece? Was Byron a friend of Apollo? Was it mission accomplished at the time of his death?
2. Jackie Kennedy Onnassis (1929-1994)
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier married John F Kennedy in 1953. Kennedy went onto become the 45th President of the United States in 1961, up until his tragic assassination in 1963.
Ripley’s Believe it or Not, tells of 6 weird coincidences between Kennedy and Lincoln:
- Kennedy (1917-1963) and Lincoln (1809-1865) were two of America’s best-loved presidents. Kennedy was involved in segregation issues and Lincoln with slavery issues.
- Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Both assassinators were born in 1939 and 1839 respectively, 100 years apart.
- Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who warned him not to go to Dallas, Texas. Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who warned him not to go to the theatre.
- Both men were shot on a Friday, from behind, and with their wives present.
- Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran into a theatre, while Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and ran into a warehouse.
- Kennedy and Lincoln were both succeeded by men named Johnson, born in 1908 and 1808 respectively, 100 years apart.
Is this sheer coincidence or something else?
Jackie, the wife of Kennedy, later married the Greek-Argentine shipping magnate, Aristotle Socrates Onassis, in 1968 on the private Greek island of Skorpios.
The island, just east of Lefkada in the Ionian Sea, was purchased by Onassis in 1962, the year after Kennedy became President. Unfortunately the tragedies never stopped coming.
Alexander, the only son of Aristotle Onassis and his first wife Tina Livanos, died in an airplane crash in 1973, ten years after the death of John F. Kennedy.
John F Kennedy Junior, the only son of Jackie and John F Kennedy, died in an airplane crash in 1999.
John F. Kennedy Junior at least experienced many extraordinary highs during his lifetime. He even went out with the gorgeous blonde from the movie Summer Lovers, a movie filmed on a spectacular Greek island super paradise.
The Kennedy clan are forever linked with Greece for some reason. Who knows why?
The Sphinx
The tragedies experienced by the Kennedy/Onassis families makes the fate of Oedipus from Greek mythology seem plausible.
For those of you who need a reminder, Oedipus was the tragic figure who crossed paths with the dreaded Sphinx during ancient times.
The Sphinx uttered mysterious riddles to passers-by and devoured those who couldn’t provide the correct answer. The Gods were cruel.
The Sphinx, having the body of a winged lion and the head of a woman, offered Oedipus her favourite riddle:
Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening?
After pondering over the riddle carefully, Oedipus offered up the following answer, something like this:
Man … who crawls as a baby, and later walks on two legs, while in old age uses the aid of a walking stick. That answer doesn’t make much sense when you think about it, because kids as young as two years old can walk, which isn’t proportional to the “two at midday” timeframe.
Oedipus however won the battle of wits with a correct answer. Lucky for him. The disenchanted Sphinx had no choice but to immediately kill herself, so she threw herself onto some rocks below. It doesn’t sound like a tragedy related to Oedipus at this stage, unless of course you know the whole story.
Who makes this stuff up? This Greek myth must be some kind of massive warning to all of humanity.
3. Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks became famous in the television sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980-1982).
My own 10 favourite movies starring Tom Hanks include:
- Splash (1984)
- Bachelor Party (1984)
- The Money Pit (1985)
- Big (1988)
- The Burbs (1989)
- You’ve Got Mail (1998)
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- Forrest Gump (1994)
- Apollo 13 (1995)
- Cast Away (2000)
Coincidently, Daryl Hannah who co-starred with Tom Hanks in his first hit movie Splash, was romantically involved with John F. Kennedy Junior for a long time. Is this all sheer coincidence? Here we have three famous celebrities connected to the Greek islands.
In 1988, Tom Hanks married the classy Rita Wilson, a woman of Greek ethnicity. Another Greek link.
The family has enjoyed regular vacations at their holiday home on the Greek isle of Antiparos ever since. He got extremely lucky with his choice of bride. They’ve probably explored many of other beautiful Greek islands as well. Is this guy blessed or what?
John Malkovich
John Malkovich starred in the film, Eleni (1985). This movie is based partly on a haunting book with the same title, by Nicholas Gage, which details some of the hardships faced during the Greek Civil War.
If you’ve seen Eleni, you’ll fully appreciate the comedy, Being John Malkovich (1999).
https://youtu.be/vNInrUkctc4
Nick Giannopoulos
Nick has holidayed in Greece regularly from what I’ve read, ever since his teen years. He obviously really loves the Greek islands, especially Mykonos.
If you want to get some idea of Nick’s life, then you’ll have to watch the classic Australian/wog movie, The Kings of Mykonos (2010).
It’s interesting to note that ten years after appearing in this Kia car commercial, The Kings of Mykonos happened to be released.
What’s the main point I’m trying to make? These are just random words. The world is random chaos. It’s all randomness. Randomness, randomness, randomness.
