Obituary: Demis Roussos, heavyweight romantic, balladeer and sex symbol

01 February 2015 - 01:59 By The Daily Telegraph
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - 9th OCTOBER: Greek singer Demis Roussos performs live on stage at the Platen 10-daagse at Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands on 9th October 1984.
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - 9th OCTOBER: Greek singer Demis Roussos performs live on stage at the Platen 10-daagse at Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands on 9th October 1984.
Image: (Rob Verhorst/Redferns)

l1946-2015: Demis Roussos, the Greek singer who has died aged 68, became an unlikely heart-throb in the '70s when his album sales earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

He scored his biggest success in Britain in 1975, when he had five albums in the top 10 at the same time, and in 1976, when his annoyingly unforgettable romantic ballad Forever and Ever was No1 in the singles charts. Worldwide he sold more than 60million albums.

"My music came right on time," Roussos said in 2002. "It was romantic Mediterranean music addressed to all the people who wanted to go on holiday ... other artists like Julio Iglesias and Nana Mouskouri followed me."

His publicity people described Roussos's songs as a mixture of "Byzantine psalms and muezzin prayer calls", and there was something otherworldly about his tremulous, near-falsetto delivery. Even if his voice had not compelled attention, his 150kg girth, beard, long hair and penchant for billowing kaftans would have marked him out.

Incredibly to some, Roussos, who became known as "The Phenomenon", became a sex symbol. In later life, he recalled that women in the front row would sometimes try to grab his kaftans to see if he was wearing anything underneath (he wasn't).

Critics, though, were less easily smitten. The Sun likened him to a cross between Mickey Mouse and Moby Dick.

Roussos felt he had left an enduring impression on the 20th century: "Nobody can deny that my name left a mark into the century's music," he said in 1999.

Artemios Ventouris Roussos was born to Greek parents on June 15 1946 in Alexandria, Egypt. The family had to flee Egypt for Greece during the Suez crisis of 1956, leaving all their possessions behind, and as soon as he was old enough, young Demis, who sang in a Greek Byzantine church choir as a child and learnt guitar, trumpet and piano in school, began work as a cabaret musician to help his family make ends meet.

Towards the end of the '60s, he hooked up with the future film music composer Vangelis, with whom he formed Aphrodite's Child. In 1968 they released the song Rain and Tears during the student riots in Paris. Referring to tear gas used on demonstrators, it sold more than a million copies in France and scraped into the top 40 in Britain.

In 1971, Roussos went solo. His hits included Happy to be on an Island in the Sun ; My Friend The Wind ; Goodbye My Love, Goodbye ; Quand je t'aime ; Someday Somewhere and Lovely Lady of Arcadia .

By the time his star began to wane in Britain, Roussos was a wealthy man with a mansion near Paris, a private jet, an estate in the south of France and all the other trappings of success.

In the early '80s, while living in California, he went on a diet, shed about 40kg, then published A Question of Weight, which sold a million copies. He remained constantly popular in Europe, where he continued to tour.

Roussos was married and divorced three times and is survived by a daughter and a son.

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now