Obituary of Theodore George Alevizos

Theodore G. Alevizos, 83, born February 7, 1926, died peacefully of multiple organ failure on Friday, October 30, 2009, under the care of Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ted leaves his wife Susan, three sons, several grandchildren and his sister Stella. The many details of his life can be found in previous volumes of "Who's Who in America": the degrees, employment, military honors, recordings, books, and concerts. But the true depth of his life is as follows. First, he cared deeply for the thousands of students he taught: ESL, Greek, the Voice in Performance, and Sports and Entertainment Law. Second, he was kind to the thousands of employees he hired to staff the several libraries he oversaw at Harvard. He hired the handicapped for public service jobs before it was the law; he gave many a maternity leave before it had a name. And small boxes of homemade cookies for his children would be left outside his back door at Christmas by grateful employees and students. Finally, he needed no recognition for his role in the completion of the 1969 Costas-Gavras movie "Z", languishing in an incomplete state in Paris in 1968, lacking the musical score that would bring it to life. When the colonels took over Greece by military fiat in 1967, the composer Mikis Theodorakis was jailed for his political beliefs and his music was banned. At that time Ted Alevizos and his wife were living in Greece on a sabbatical, with an advance from a publisher to write a book on Greek music. After many meetings at the Brazilian Cafe, an intellectual hangout between Kolonaki and Zonars, the Alevizos agreed to smuggle the Theodorakis score for "Z" out of Greece so the film could be completed. The photographer Yannis Maillis and poet Eleni Vakalo promised to oversee the return to America of the two small Alevizos boys then living in Pankrati, should their parents be arrested; there was a real probability of solitary confinement and phalanga. After a nervous but successful border crossing, the movie was finished and received many awards; it is still a compelling watch today. Ted and his wife never spoke of this dangerous escapade to anyone for fear of being banned from entry into Greece in the future. But the emotion and excitement of that trip can be heard in the Theodorakis songs he recorded for the poetry room in Lamont Library at Harvard. Donations in Ted's memory may be made to Nathan Adelson Hospice, 4141 Swenson Street, Las Vegas NV 89119 or The Juilliard School, 60 Lincoln Plaza, NY NY 10023.