1. Demis Roussos was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, in a Greek family.
21 Facts About Demis Roussos
1. 2.
Demis Roussos's father, George Roussos, was a classical guitarist and an engineer, and his mother, Olga, participated with her husband in an amateur theatrical Greek group in Alexandria ; her family originally came from Greece.
3.
Demis Roussos's grandfather moved to Egypt in the early 1900s along with his future wife who was underaged.
4.
Demis Roussos changed his surname from Ventouris to Roussos to hide from her family.
5.
Demis Roussos's parents lost their possessions during the Suez Crisis in 1956 and consequently decided to move to Greece.
6.
Demis Roussos began a solo career with the song "We Shall Dance" in 1971, which was a top ten hit in both the Netherlands and Belgium.
7.
Demis Roussos was equally successful across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Japan.
8.
In 1973, Demis Roussos made one of his earliest television appearances on The Basil Brush Show and appeared on Nana Mouskouri's TV show in the UK.
9.
Demis Roussos' run of hits was maintained in the 1980s mainly in France with a number two "Quand je t'aime" in 1988 and "On ecrit sur les murs" in 1989, along with golden records for the albums Le Grec and Voice and Vision.
10.
In 1982, Roussos released an album simply titled Demis, on which Jon Anderson of the band Yes collaborated, writing one song music and lyrics Lament and writing lyrics on two others, the first one Song For The Free and the other one Race to the end with music by Vangelis.
11.
Just one month before his death, Demis Roussos selected the tracks for an official CD compilation of his life's work, including notes by his two children Emily and Cyril.
12.
The CD, Demis Roussos Collected, was released in March 2015.
13.
Elefteriades composed, wrote and arranged the song "The Beast" for Demis Roussos and directed the video for it.
14.
In June 1985, Demis Roussos was among the passengers of TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome, which was hijacked, but he was released along with four other Greeks after five days while most of the other hostages remained there for 17 days.
15.
Demis Roussos died in the morning of 25 January 2015, from stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, and liver cancer while hospitalised at Ygeia Hospital in Athens, Greece.
16.
Demis Roussos's death was confirmed a day later by a friend, the journalist Nikos Aliagas, who tweeted the news on 26 January 2015 in both Greek and French.
17.
Demis Roussos's death was confirmed later on the same day by his daughter, who spoke to Greek and French media.
18.
Demis Roussos had a daughter, Emily, with his first wife, Monique.
19.
Demis Roussos's fourth, and last, wife was a Parisian named Marie.
20.
Demis Roussos is the subject of an argument between two main characters in the TV adaptation of Mike Leigh's 1977 play Abigail's Party.
21.
Demis Roussos's wife asked him to incorporate this song into Sholay's music track.