Anestis Vlachos: Cult stardom, otherness and the performativity of troubled villainy

This article examines actor Anestis Vlachos, who in Greek cinema of the 1950s and 1960s was frequently cast as a troubled villain. Moving beyond prevailing notions of desirability and glamour and drawing primarily on textual analysis, it argues that Vlachos can be understood as a cult star whose non-normative appeal emerges from the idiosyncratic ways he constructed a screen persona of villainy, torment and Otherness across diverse generic, artistic and production contexts. It explores how this persona, deeply grounded in corporeality, embodied anxiety, failed masculinity and repressed sexual desire, offering a layered cinematic representation not only of the transgressive, but also of the primitive, the repressed, the desperate and the instinctive. By engaging with both thematic and performance concerns, the article develops a typology of the characters Vlachos portrayed, highlighting the performative traits that define his iconic screen identity and the cult qualities that arise from them.