Gregory Rozakis

Gregory Rozakis (January 30, 1943 – August 24, 1989) was an American actor and playwright born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the eldest of two children of Stavros Razokis, a waiter and later restaurant manager, and Stella Tsambarlis. He attended Erasmus Hall High School and New York University, and studied acting with Lee Strasberg. His Broadway career spanned 1963 to 1967, encompassing credits in What Did We Do Wrong?, Natural Affection, and The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

Rozakis established himself in multiple disciplines before his Broadway debut. In 1961 he appeared Off-Broadway in his own stage play, Chalk Marks on a Brick Wall, and the following year adapted it as a teleplay that aired on the CBS series Lamp Unto My Feet in November 1962, marking his television writing and acting debut simultaneously. His Broadway debut came in 1963 with William Inge's Natural Affection, in which he played Kim Stanley's son alongside Harry Guardino and Tom Bosley. The production closed after 30 performances, but critic Martin Gottfried singled Rozakis out as the production's most memorable element, writing that his portrayal of the boy's "aching misery" was "staggering" and that by the play's end he became "a monumentally tragic figure, almost soaring off the stage."

In a 1963 interview with Teen Hit Parader, Rozakis described acting as a means to a longer-term goal of devoting himself exclusively to writing, noting that he considered himself at that point more valuable as an actor than as a playwright. He later wrote a modern adaptation of Euripides' Orestes, with music by Mark Shangold and lyrics by Andrew Amic-Angelo, which debuted in 1970 and was revived in February 1973.

Beyond Broadway, Rozakis built a substantial screen career. He portrayed a Christ-like Armenian immigrant in Elia Kazan's America America and appeared in films including Death Wish and The Gambler. In Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club, he played Charlie Chaplin, a role he had long sought as a way of embodying a multi-hyphenate artist he admired. His final film, John Patrick Shanley's Five Corners, cast him as one of two neighborhood police officers alongside John Turturro and Rose Gregorio; Cleveland Plain Dealer entertainment editor Joanna Connors identified Rozakis's performance among the film's "especially great performances."

In private life, Rozakis remained a Brooklyn resident and continued to write. A letter he submitted to the New York Daily News praised Cher's Academy Award-winning performance in Moonstruck, in which he described himself as "an actor with many years' experience" and argued that the award should go to performers whose work makes audiences "feel like a zillion dollars." Rozakis died on August 24, 1989, of complications from HIV at Brooklyn's New York Methodist Hospital. He was survived by his mother, Stella, and his sister, Marcella. His remains are interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.