34 Facts About George Solomos

The Solomos family were descendants of tobacco tycoon Count Nicolas Solomonee from Venice, Italy.

George Solomos's father had left Sparta because of a family tragedy when he was still a teenager.

George Solomos's parents were introduced on landing in New York about 1910, and decided to marry and stay in the United States for a while.

George Solomos published and wrote under the name Themistocles Hoetis, the surname of his mother's family, from 1948 to 1958, after being advised by some relatives that his views could attract trouble for his family.

George Solomos's father ran a large Mediterranean delicatessen and general food store on Vermont and Henry Street, right near to Michigan Avenue.

George Solomos joined the USAF at the age of 17 after changing his birth certificate with his father's permission.

George Solomos was rescued by a French grandmother and her granddaughter.

George Solomos was taken on a journey of more than 200 miles to a little village north of Paris called Evereux.

George Solomos stayed in the village with the caretaker of Chateau de Beaufresne, which had belonged to the famous impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt.

George Solomos was then passed to other members of the Resistance, who helped the young airman cross occupied France and eventually enter Spain, from where he was sent to Gibraltar, and then back to his airbase near Ipswich.

From 1948 to 1958, George Solomos used the pen-name Themistocles Hoetis.

George Solomos had been with the wartime resistance in Norway.

George Solomos was then working for the Norwegian newspaper Arbeiderbladet and later became deputy chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

George Solomos left the United States soon after this and returned to Europe.

George Solomos was re-united with many of the people who had featured in the film, including the boy who had played the young shepherd, when he returned to Cappadocia in 2002, on the 40th anniversary of the film.

George Solomos was a regular visitor to Morocco, where his friends Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles had lived for many years.

George Solomos had first gone there in 1950 with Irving Thalberg, Jr.

George Solomos then went from Salonika to Athens and on to Sparta to visit his family home, through a country ravaged by war.

George Solomos then moved to what is known as Swinging London in the 1960s, and was involved in its bohemian underground.

George Solomos published David Chapman, a young poet who was briefly incarcerated in an Insane asylum because of his heroin addiction, and wrote a powerful poem about his experiences which was called "Withdrawal".

George Solomos commissioned a soundtrack from the experimental jazz combo Spontaneous Music Ensemble.

George Solomos brought a print of his short film Echo in the Village to the UK in the early 1960s and was invited onto the BBC television show Late Night Line Up, where he was interviewed by Joan Bakewell.

George Solomos's appearance followed Bakewell's interview that same evening with American theatre and film director Joseph Losey.

George Solomos later introduced him to her partner, John Lennon of The Beatles, and they asked him to arrange US showings of some films they had made, including Smile and Bottoms.

George Solomos arranged for them to be premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1970, and took the movies on a series of screenings around the USA.

From 1970 to 1972, George Solomos was the Film correspondent for The Irish Times, but was asked to leave Ireland by the Irish government after commenting unfavourably on the influence of the Roman Catholic Church on Irish culture.

George Solomos had infuriated the Irish government for arranging the free distribution of The Little Red Schoolbook, which was being given away free in England at the time by the National Union of School Students.

George Solomos was seen onto a ferry to Britain by Charles Haughey, who later wrote to him and offered to let him return.

George Solomos returned to London, where he managed to sell a film outline to Ringo Starr that would be a potential vehicle for mutual friend, actor Ben Carruthers.

In 1974, George Solomos moved to Philadelphia and lived in a house opposite the MOVE commune when it was notoriously bombed from a police helicopter, a tragedy that killed six adult residents and five children.

George Solomos published one last copy of ZERO in the early 1980s, which was dedicated to John Africa and the members of MOVE, many of whom were still in prison in the United States in 2009.

In 1986, George Solomos returned to France to find the villagers who had helped him escape from the Nazis in occupied France.

Since 1999, George Solomos published the on-line version of his film and culture magazine fiba.

George Solomos died at home in Catford, SE London, on November 8,2010.