Kostas Gousgounis

He also made a guest appearance in the popular Greek comedy series Tis Elados Ta Pedia (Greece's Boys). Gousgounis was the individual honoured at the 3rd Festival of Cult Greek Cinema, on 14 February 2005. He was described as semi-divine, the "king of the 1970s," the "master of Greek porn," and as "the man who deservedly won the throne of the most erotic Greek actor". He was also considered a legend of surrealist sexual comedy. Gousgounis was considered an "emblematic figure who left his mark on cult [film]".

• Name — Kostas Gousgounis • Birth Name — Konstantinos Gousgounis • Born — 21 March 1931 • Birthplace — Larissa, Greece • Died — 6 May 2022 • Place of death — Eleusis, Greece • Native Name — Κώστας Γκουσγκούνης • Occupation — Actor, pornographic actor

Gousgounis was born 21 March 1931 in Larissa, Thessaly, to Mimis, a photographer. His father taught him photography and he worked as a photographer in Thessaly before deciding to go to Athens. In Athens he started appearing in various films playing small roles. In 1952 he appeared in the film Agne of the Port, subsequently appearing in surrealist sex comedies, the exception being the film Peeping Tom, his only hardcore film. He was not particularly handsome, and his acting ability was average, but his comedic and surrealist approach to acting made him a sort of avant-garde actor in Greece in the 1970s and 1980s. His appeal was widespread among the Greek social strata, ranging from students to members of the upper classes who went to see his films attracted by their comedic appeal. His career lasted from the early 1970s to mid-1980s. His films did not follow the formulaic approach or artistic pretensions of similar Greek films of the era, and although these were primarily low budget productions, he managed to attract a large popular following and set new cinematic trends. The directors of his films allowed him the freedom to improvise during his performances. The screening of his films created the first traffic jams in Thessaloniki, and his audience in Athens, mainly university students, after their chemistry labs, walked through the streets to the Hellespontos cinema in candlelight processions. Once at the cinema, the audience participated in the performance by lighting cigarette lighters and reciting parts of the film's dialogue, occasionally shouting Axios, Axios ("Worthy" in Greek). He appeared in films such as O Idonoblepsias (The Peeping Tom), the award-winning Nikolas Triantafyllidis film Radio Moscow, The Overcoat (1996) and Mavro Gala (Black Milk, 2000). He also made a guest appearance in the popular Greek comedy series Tis Elados Ta Pedia (Greece's Boys). Gousgounis was the individual honoured at the 3rd Festival of Cult Greek Cinema, on 14 February 2005. In a 1971 film, titled Sex 13 Beaufort, he co-starred with Lykourgos Kallergis. He has been described as the "king of the 1970s," the "master of Greek porn," and as "the man who deservedly won the throne of the most erotic Greek actor". Gousgounis is considered an "emblematic figure who left his mark on cult [film]". Despite the success of his films, and the adoration of his fans, Gousgounis stayed away from the Greek star-system and avoided publicity.

In the early 1980s, Gousgounis performed in a theatrical play in Athens. His premiere was at the Star Theatre with subsequent performances at the Elite Theatre in Athens. The title of the play was Gousgounis and the Tribe of the Lost Amazons. It was about a character similar to Odysseus who is shipwrecked, along with his companions, in the land of the Amazons. The encounters of Gousgounis and his comrades with the tribe of the Amazons, depicted in the play, were a source of amusement for the high-school students of that decade. The show was very successful.

In the book Greece in Modern Times: An Annotated Bibliography of Works Published in English in 22 Academic Disciplines During the 20th Century it is mentioned that in Athens there is a fan club dedicated to Gousgounis named the Gousgounis 300. Their meeting place is the Esperia Cinema in Athens where they meet every Monday at 6:00 p.m. to watch his movies. The meetings include rituals such as candlelight processions and singing before the show starts. If the fans consider the film to be mild, they start shouting that they want to see tsonta, which in Greek means that they demand that the projection engineer add frames from another, more hardcore, film to the ongoing film projection. Similar processions in honour of Gousgounis also happened during the 1970s.

Kostas Gousgounis is recorded at birth as Κωνσταντίνος Γκουσγκούνης. Recorded as photographer and actor.

The comedy component of Gousgounis films is alluded to in Maclean J. Storer's 2008 book Forward O Peasant, where the author mentions: "It didn't really matter to him if she acted like someone out of Boat Bangers III, or perhaps more accurately, given the comedy aspect, like someone in a Costas Gousgounis film". He is featured in the book by Giannis Soldatos The History of Nudity in Cinema.