Rudy Rico, actor
Hollywood, California, USA, 1933

Jimmy Kolivas alias 'Rudy Rico' was born on Ithaca in 1909. He came to Australia in 1927, after three years in South Africa. After a period of professional acting and dancing in the United States during the thirties, he returned to Australia and toured with the Tivoli. He served in the Australian Army during WWII, and on his return opened the Brown Derby Cafe on Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW - he named his establishment after a famous Los Angeles cafe. 'Rudy' died in 1978.

Drama is quintessentially Greek and quite a number of Greek-Australians have undertaken acting either as amateurs or professionally since the early 1900s. Today, actors such as Zoe and Gia Carides, Lex Marinos, Alex Dimitriades, Marilynne Paspaley, Nick Giannopolous, Mary Coustas and Nicholas Papdemetriou are well established faces in Australian film, theatre and television.

Photo courtesy N. Raftos