Zozo Dalmas, the beautiful Greek diva with whom Kemal Ataturk  fell in love and became the face

Zozo Dalmas, the beautiful Greek diva with whom Kemal Ataturk  fell in love and became the face of the emblematic greek “Sante” cigarettes. 

Zozo Dalmas was one of the first Greek divas. She was born in Contantinople (now Istanbul) in 1905,  started her career in the Greek city of Salonika back in the 1920s and she soon became an important actress and well-known operetta singer. But above all Zozo was one of the most beautiful women who lived in the Mediterranean area back then and her beauty helped her to become famous in Greece, Turkey, Syria, Cyprus and Egypt over the years. When she was 20 years old she appeared in a central theater in Constantinople. One night Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the famous founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President, happened to be in the audience and immediately fell in love with her. He courted her with flowers and gifts and they soon became a couple. Kemal spent a lot of money to please Zozo but the truth is she was more interested in the man than his power and wealth. Once she took a pair of scissors and cut-off the picture of Kemal’s face out of each and every Turkish banknote that he dared given her because as she told him “it is the only thing worth keeping out of this stuff!!”. Their affair was kept a secret because political relationships between Greece and Turkey were at an all-time low back then. Zozo lived an extraordinary and glamorous life in her youth; in the mid-1930s a painted picture of a smiling blonde woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to her appeared on the packages of the popular Greek brand of cigarettes “Sante”(as a matter of fact, the brand still uses the very same picture on their products till now-days); in the 40s she was even the inspiration for a couple of Greek rebetiko songs including the legendary in Greece “Derbenterissa” written by the master singer/composer Vasilis Tsitsanis.

Her stormy relationship with Kemal Ataturk along with her friendship with Greek governor Eleftherios Venizelos had it’s consequences on public. Rumor had it that she was a double spy, spying on Kemal at the behest of Eleftherios Venizelos.

She had said to Dimitris Liberopoulos, however. “I was not a spy, just a Greek patriot… And all my diamonds given to me by Egyptian princes and pashas I gave to poor girls and family members …”

She continued to appear on stage till the 50s but unfortunately old-age found her totally penniless and forgotten by most, living in a miserable hovel; she continued however to be a coquette and a flirt till her final days!

http://www.elenasdiary.com/en/saga-of-the-week/3975-zozo-dalmas-o-erotas-me-ton-kemal-kai-to-adokso-telos-enos-ellinikoy-mythou