The “Colossus of Love” star Elias Fanouris, met his tragic death on Friday morning, June 13. The man was famous in Rhodes and became known to the rest of Greece as the lead actor of the popular documentary “The Colossi of Love.”
“Bruno” from Rhodes was the self-proclaimed love specialist who stated that his purpose in life was to make women happy. Elias Fanouris, the star of the award-winning documentary “Colossi of Love,” was a legendary Greek lover who claimed to have bedded 4,500 women and helped boost tourism on the island of Rhodes in the 70s and 80s. “The Colossus of love,” aged 64, was found incinerated under peculiar circumstances in his house on Peisandou Str. in the Agios Fanourios neighborhood of his home island.
An investigation is under way as to the causes of the fire and it is being conducted by the Deputy Police office of Rhodes and the Investigating Unit of the Fire Department. The Fire Department responded to a call at 1:30 a.m. concerning a fire that broke out in the actor’s house and managed to extinguish it. The firemen discovered an incinerated body inside the house at around 3:30 a.m. Although they still have doubts on the body’s I.D. since no one could identify it, all evidence shows that it belongs to the 64-year-old man who was the only person living in the house. Furthermore, police says that witnesses saw him engaged in an argument with a suspicious man.
Elias Fanouris was the epitome of the Greek “kamaki” (harpoon in English). The kamaki was a Greek man between the ages of 20 and 40 whose favorite hobby was to seduce foreign women who spent their holidays in Greece. The golden age of kamaki was the period after the dictatorship until the late 80s when tourism increased rapidly. Some of them were male escorts but for the most part these men were a tourist attraction to lonely women who wanted to combine holidays in the sun along with a brief summer fling.
The kamaki had his own dress code so to speak: open shirt, gold chain around the neck and tight pants. You would find him in tourist areas and mainly on the beach. He would whisper words of love in broken English and promise everything to every woman available. Some of them ended up marrying foreign women and moved to other countries. The kamaki is no longer a creature that inhabits the Greek tourist areas. He disappeared in the 90s.
In 2010, director Maria Koufopoulou “resurrected” the kamaki in her documentary “Colossi of Love” which was shot in Rhodes. Starring in the film was Elias Fanouris, along with some other of his comrades. Fanouris revealed all the secrets of his trade bragging in front of the camera and claiming that he is still active but with older women now. The documentary won Best Documentary Award at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival 2010. “Colossi of Love” was presented at the Documentary Festival of Thessaloniki last year.
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