Andreas Voutsinas was one of the very few Greek artists to build a truly brilliant international career: director of dozens of major productions in New York, Paris, London, Canada, Athens, Thessaloniki and Epidaurus; an actor who worked alongside Hollywood legends such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Marlon Brando; and a teacher to Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Fanny Ardant and many other stars.

Fifteen years after his death, the extraordinary, almost novel-like life and luminous career of the talented, groundbreaking, exuberant and fiercely passionate Andreas Voutsinas is illuminated through the exhibition “I, Andreas Voutsinas”, hosted by the Hellenic American Union under the auspices and support of the Hellenic Parliament. The exhibition opens on November 24.

Through personal belongings, letters, portraits and hundreds of rare photographs, the exhibition—curated by Iris Kritikou, Stamatis Gikas and Mario Voutsinas—reconstructs the golden eras of film and theater in which Andreas Voutsinas lived and thrived. It also highlights his close friendships with major figures of stage and screen, his turbulent relationship with his son, and the artistic legacy he left both internationally and in Greece.

The great love affair with Jane Fonda

Having managed to study acting and costume design at London’s Old Vic School—armed with a monologue from Shakespeare’s Richard II taught to him by Karolos Koun—the dyslexic, left-handed and academically struggling young Voutsinas arrived in bustling New York in 1954. There he met the Greek-American director Elia Kazan, who sent him to study under the legendary Lee Strasberg, co-founder of the famous Actors Studio. This is where he found himself among young actors who would soon become icons: Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando and Paul Newman.

Andreas Voutsinas with Jane Fonda and other young actors in Lee Strasberg’s class at the legendary Actors Studio in New York

At this legendary talent incubator he met the beautiful and gifted Jane Fonda. The two fell into a passionate romance that led to an engagement, despite her father’s strong objections. For three years they were inseparable—living together, with Voutsinas coaching her intensively. His first attempt at directing on Broadway came in 1962 with Fun Couple, starring Fonda, though the production closed within days.

Undeterred, they moved to Hollywood to pursue their dreams. Voutsinas set aside his own ambitions to focus entirely on training Fonda—pushing her hard, often too hard. The constant strain eventually ended their intense young relationship. Their love—and jealousy—lives on in a trove of letters they exchanged.

“I can’t live with a mirror that constantly shows me my mistakes,” she told him when she left. “We were together for three years—very young—and one year felt like five,” Voutsinas later said. “She came to Greece, met my parents… we were incredibly close.”

Returning to Greece – and his admiration for Melina

After a long period in America, followed by a flourishing chapter in Paris where he founded the Theatre de Cinquante in 1967—training dozens of major French actors such as Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Adjani, Fanny Ardant and Juliette Binoche—Voutsinas returned to Greece in 1974 at the invitation of his friend Nonika Galinea to direct her and Alekos Alexandrakis in Same Time, Next Year.

Three years later, Jules Dassin asked him to play a director in the film A Dream of Passion, starring Melina Mercouri. Voutsinas, who adored Melina, immediately set aside everything to appear at her side.

In the early 1980s he joined the National Theatre of Northern Greece, which became his artistic home for years. There he staged acclaimed productions with Despo Diamantidou, brought bold new interpretations of ancient tragedies to Epidaurus (Helen, The Trojan Women, Medea), and later directed Greece’s national star Aliki Vougiouklaki. In 1986–87 he reshaped Athens’ musical scene by collaborating with Alkistis Protopsalti, Stamatis Kraounakis, Lina Nikolakopoulou, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Kostas Ganotis and Lakis Lazopoulos on the groundbreaking show Leoforos.

The estranged son

Among the exhibition’s curators is his son, 72-year-old Marios Voutsinas, trained in interior architecture and now working in jewelry and micro-sculpture. His participation is deeply moving, given that their relationship was strained and painful for decades.

Marios was the child of the youthful romance between 20-year-old Andreas and 19-year-old Artemis Papastrati. They moved to London together when Andreas went to study, married civilly in 1953 and had a baby boy shortly afterward—born in Paris during Artemis’s return trip to Greece.

Little Marios grew up in Athens with his mother, completely cut off from his father, who lived permanently abroad. He would meet him for the first time at age 11 in America. Marios has recalled bitterly that when someone informed Voutsinas that his young son was waiting to see him, he slipped out the back door to avoid the meeting.

Voutsinas was absolutely devoted to his art; there was simply no space in his life for fatherhood. He often made that painfully clear to Marios. “I made it my life’s mission to understand whether my father truly didn’t want me, or simply couldn’t be a father. I admired him so much,” Marios has said. “I remember our last fight in Epidaurus—he threw his cane so hard it shattered the glass. I told him, ‘This is it. I’ve been chasing you since I was 11 and now I’m 40. If you don’t call me first, I’ll never try again.’”

“Somewhere inside him, Marios believed I would love him the way he wanted,” Voutsinas later admitted. “But I always loved my work more than myself. I loved the theater because it gave me things life never could.”

Yet in the final months of Voutsinas’s life, his son stood by him—supporting him through serious health problems—and was among those who scattered his ashes in the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus, per his last wish.