53 Facts About Telly Savalas

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American actor.

Aristotelis Telly Savalas was born in Garden City, New York, on January 21,1922, the second of five children born to Greek parents Christina, an artist who was a native of Sparta, and Nick Telly Savalas, a restaurant owner.

Telly Savalas initially spoke only Greek when he entered grade school, but later learned English.

Telly Savalas attended Cobbett Junior High School in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Telly Savalas won a spelling bee there in 1934; due to an oversight, he did not receive his prize until 1991, when the school principal and the Boston Herald awarded it to him.

Telly Savalas graduated from Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park, New York in 1940.

In 1941, Telly Savalas was drafted into the United States Army.

From 1941 to 1943, Telly Savalas served in Company C, 12th Medical Training Battalion, 4th Medical Training Regiment at Camp Pickett, Virginia.

Telly Savalas spent more than a year recuperating in hospital with a broken pelvis, sprained ankle and concussion.

Telly Savalas then attended the Armed Forces Institute where he studied radio and television production.

Telly Savalas received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Columbia's School of General Studies in 1946 and started working on a master's degree while preparing for medical school.

In 1950, Telly Savalas hosted a radio show called "The Coffeehouse in New York City".

Telly Savalas began as an executive director and then as senior director of the news special events at ABC.

Telly Savalas then became an executive producer for the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, where he gave Howard Cosell his first job in television.

Telly Savalas did not consider acting as a career until asked if he could recommend an actor who could do a European accent.

Telly Savalas did but as the friend in question could not go, Savalas himself went to cover for his friend and ended up being cast on "And Bring Home a Baby", an episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre in January 1958.

Telly Savalas appeared on two more episodes of the series in 1959 and 1960, one, acting alongside a young Sydney Pollack.

Telly Savalas was in a version of The Iceman Cometh.

Telly Savalas quickly became in much demand as a guest star on TV shows, appearing in Sunday Showcase, Diagnosis: Unknown, Dow Hour of Great Mysteries, Naked City, The Witness, The United States Steel Hour, and The Aquanauts.

Telly Savalas was a regular on the short-lived NBC series Acapulco with Ralph Taeger and James Coburn.

Telly Savalas made his film debut in Mad Dog Coll, playing a cop.

Telly Savalas's work had impressed fellow actor Burt Lancaster, who arranged for Savalas to be cast in the John Frankenheimer directed The Young Savages.

In one of his most acclaimed performances, Telly Savalas reunited with Lancaster and Frankenheimer for Birdman of Alcatraz, where he was nominated for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

Telly Savalas guest starred in a number of TV series during the decade including The New Breed, The Detectives, Ben Casey, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive and Arrest and Trial among others.

Telly Savalas continued supporting roles in films such as The Man from the Diners' Club, Love Is a Ball and Johnny Cool, Savalas, already at a late stage of male-pattern baldness, shaved his head to play Pontius Pilate in The Greatest Story Ever Told and kept his head shaven for the rest of his life.

Telly Savalas was part of an all-star cast in The Dirty Dozen, playing Archer Maggott, in a role Jack Palance turned down.

Telly Savalas' first leading role in film was in the British crime comedy Crooks and Coronets.

Telly Savalas has appeared in films during the 1970s including Kelly's Heroes ; Clay Pigeon ; and several European features such as Violent City ; A Town Called Bastard ; Horror Express ; A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die; the title role in Pancho Villa ; and Redneck.

Telly Savalas reunited with Christopher Lee in the 1976 thriller Killer Force, and appeared in Peter Hyams' Capricorn One.

Bobby Crocker, whose on-screen chemistry with Telly Savalas was a success story of 1970s television, and Dan Frazer as Captain Frank McNeil.

Telly Savalas was unhappy about the show's demise but got the chance to reprise the Kojak persona in several television movies, starting in 1985.

Telly Savalas wrote, directed and starred in the 1977 independent thriller Beyond Reason.

Telly Savalas was part of an all-star cast in the movies Escape to Athena, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Cannonball Run II, and has appeared in a number of film and television guest roles during the 1980s, including Border Cop and Faceless, the series Tales of the Unexpected, and two episodes each of The Love Boat and The Equalizer : the latter series was produced by James McAdams, who had produced Kojak.

Telly Savalas was the lead actor in the TV movie Hellinger's Law, which was originally planned as a pilot for a series but ultimately never materialized.

Telly Savalas's spoken word version of Bread's "If", produced by Snuff Garrett, reached No 1 in both the UK and Ireland in March 1975, but just No 88 in Canada, and his version of Don Williams's "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend" topped the charts in Switzerland in February 1981.

Telly Savalas worked with composer and producer John Cacavas on many albums, including Telly and Who Loves Ya, Baby.

On October 28,1987, Telly Savalas hosted Return to the Titanic Live, a two-hour television special broadcast from Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris.

Telly Savalas received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983.

In 1948 after his father's death from bladder cancer, Telly Savalas married his college sweetheart, Katherine Nicolaides.

Telly Savalas urged him to move back to his mother's house during that same year.

In January 1969, while working on the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Telly Savalas met actress Sally Adams, an actress 25 years his junior whose daughter from a previous relationship is Nicollette Sheridan.

Telly Savalas later moved in with Sally, who gave birth to their son Nicholas Telly Savalas on February 24,1973.

In 1977, during the last season of Kojak, Telly Savalas met Julie Hovland, a travel agent from Minnesota.

Telly Savalas was close friends with actor John Aniston, and was godfather to his daughter Jennifer, a successful TV and film actress.

Telly Savalas held a degree in psychology and was a world-class poker player who finished 21st at the main event in the 1992 World Series of Poker.

Telly Savalas loved horse racing and bought a racehorse with movie director and producer Howard W Koch.

Telly Savalas was considered by those who knew him to be a generous, graceful, compassionate man.

Telly Savalas was a strong contributor to his Greek Orthodox roots through the Saint Sophia and Saint Nicholas cathedrals in Los Angeles and was the sponsor of bringing electricity in the 1970s to his ancestral home, Ierakas, Greece.

Telly Savalas had a minor physical handicap in that his left index finger was deformed.

In 1993, Telly Savalas appeared on an Australian TV show, The Extraordinary, with a paranormal tale about a hitchhiking mystery that he could not explain.

In late 1989, Telly Savalas was diagnosed with transitional cell cancer of the bladder.

Telly Savalas died on January 22,1994, of complications of prostate and bladder cancer at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel in Universal City, California.

Telly Savalas had lived at the Sheraton in Universal City for 20 years, becoming such a fixture at the hotel bar that it was renamed Telly's.