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Born Into Poverty, Married Into Riches: Zena Kanther Dies Aged 90

Zena Kanther
Princess Zena Kanther De Tyras, the woman who was born into poverty in a Paphos village, and rescued by an American millionaire after working as a cabaret dancer in Nicosia, died yesterday at the age of 90.
Kanther, who later became renowned for her charity work and has a central Nicosia street named after her, had a difficult start in life, with a womanising father who used to beat her mother. In her autobiography, Kanther said her father would strike her mother “with real mania”, reaching the point where he would “rub her face into the ground just to deform her”.
Saying she was born “around 1930” in Tala village, Kanther said her mother worked day and night to provide for her and that she was so poor, it wasn’t until she was seven years old that she got her first pair of shoes.
Kanther moved to Paphos with her mother and sister, and then to Limassol. She lived with a man for a few months, to whom she fell pregnant.
She said she had to leave her son, Socrates, with strangers while she worked. They eventually adopted him.
After a brief marriage to a man who died suddenly shortly after they wed, Kanther said she was in the depth of despair and debt when she got offered a job in a cabaret. “I was promised a life in paradise and got hell,” said Kanther, who however became renowned across the island for her raunchy yet sophisticated shows.
It was then that she met her final husband, American millionaire Christian Kanther who she married in 1952 at the age of 30. But she soon found out that he was tormented by alcoholism. She was also involved in the Greek Cypriot fight against colonial rule from 1955 to 1959 and was an acquaintance of Grivas.
In her autobiography, Kanther said she didn’t realise exactly how rich her husband was until well into their marriage.
When she did, in addition to both of them living a bit of a jet set lifestyle, Kanther donated millions to charity, good causes, churches, municipalities, people who would ask for help, and even football clubs, over the years, and she lived in Nicosia until her death.
Kanther acquired the moniker Princess de Tyras in 1967 from Prince Pavlos Palaiologos.
(source: cyprus-mail)

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