Papas suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in recent years according to Greek media. The culture ministry did not say when she died. She was born in a village outside Corinth on the Peloponnese peninsula to a family of teachers; her father taught classical drama. Among her biggest early successes was the title role in 1962’s “Electra”, a cinematic transcription of Euripides’ ancient Greek tragedy directed by Michalis Cacoyannis. She played a Greek island resistance fighter against Nazi occupation in “The Guns of Navarone” and a young widowed woman on the island of Crete in “Zorba the Greek”.
