Seoul ’88 / Randy Harvey : High Priestess Is Not Just Any Role for Greek Actress

When the high priestess of the Temple of Hera stood to acknowledge the applause after being introduced at a luncheon Saturday on Cheju Island, the first stop in South Korea for the Olympic flame, her eyedrops fell to the floor. There was no question that she needed them. Her eyes were bloodshot.

Although it wasn’t necessary, she apologized later for her appearance, explaining that she had gotten precious little sleep in the previous five days. It’s safe to say this woman doesn’t have the normal, everyday notations in her date book.

Let’s see, on Tuesday, ignite the flame at the temple in Olympia, Greece, by reflecting the sun’s rays with a mirror. Pray to Apollo. Take the flame to the ancient Olympic stadium in a fire pot, place it on a stone altar and light the torch.

On Thursday, in Athens, turn the flame over to the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC). On Friday, fly to Bangkok with officials from SLOOC and Greece’s Hellenic Olympic Committee for a well-deserved rest of, say, 20 minutes. Leave for the Bangkok Airport at 1 a.m. to catch a flight to South Korea.

When the flame arrived on Cheju Saturday morning, it was not burned out. But she was.

It’s not easy to be the high priestess.

In this case, the high priestess is Katerina Didaskalou Veis, a Greek-born New York stage actress who would like to go Hollywood. She is 27 years old, married to a Greek diplomat and has two young daughters. Have your people call her people.

Until this one, her most difficult part was in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” She played it while performing for a Greek-American company shortly after arriving in New York six years ago. At the time, her English wasn’t as good as it is now, much less her Southern accent.

“I’m surprised I didn’t get hissed off the stage,” she said Sunday while accompanying the flame during a 10-hour ride on the cruise ship Olympia from Cheju to Pusan, South Korea’s largest port and second-largest city with a population of 3 million.

But this, this is an extraordinary role. It’s not that she doesn’t know how to play the high priestess. It’s that she doesn’t know how to be the high priestess.

That, however, is what she believes some Koreans expect of her. She didn’t include SLOOC officials, who, while treating her as an honored guest, recognize that she is an actress. But some Koreans she has met along the torch run appear absolutely awe-struck in her presence.

“A Canadian journalist who attended the kindling ceremony before the Calgary Olympics asked me if I had to be something special,” she said. “When I told him that I didn’t, he said he thought that maybe I had to be a psychic or something. Now that was a Canadian.

“So you realize that with the Korean people, who are more symbol-oriented, I represent something that’s even more powerful. I feel that.

“In a way, it’s beautiful because they appreciate me so much. But it’s a bit scary. I’m a very earthy human being. They don’t believe I could have children or be married.”

Imagine what they will think if she turns up on the big screen in the Godfather III.

After the previous high priestess retired at the conclusion of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Hellenic Olympic Committee, which guards the ancient Games’ traditions auditioned hundreds of women before settling in 1982 on Veis.

“They were looking for a young actress who has classical Greek looks and was able to recite ancient Greek poetry,” she said. “I had a classical education. They also wanted someone who could speak English or French, and I speak both.”

It didn’t hurt, she said, that the choreographer for the kindling ceremony also was Veis’ mentor at the Greece’s National Drama School in Athens.

Her first experience with the Summer Olympics was a nightmare.

Many of her countrymen considered the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee’s (LAOOC) decision to sell legs of the torch run for $3,000 a kilometer an affront to Greece’s tradition and argued against handing over the flame. Veis was pressured not to participate in the ceremony at the Temple of Hera, but, on the other hand, she felt duty bound.

“I felt like a Ping-Pong ball,” she said.

While she still does not take a stand on the issue, she defended her decision to carry out her role.

“Whatever the Los Angeles organizers chose to do was their own affair,” she said. “It didn’t interfere with our ceremony. We didn’t have the right to deprive the world of the flame.”

When she didn’t support the boycott, Olympia’s mayor, a Communist, accused her of being a right-wing fanatic. There also were published rumors that the LAOOC paid her to go through with the ceremony and that she was signed to film a soft-drink commercial in her role as the high priestess.

She denied all the allegations, saying that her appearance in this part actually has cost her money.

Not only is she not paid a salary for her performances, she had to take a leave of absence from the National Shakespearean Company of New York so she could be here. She said that to avoid sullying the high priestesses’ reputation with charges of commercialism, she also has rejected opportunities to endorse products that want to capitalize on her Olympic connection.

Her agent may not think much of her choice in parts, but Veis said she is fulfilled.

“When I lit the torch last week, I was in tears,” she said. “I couldn’t stop them. The whole idea of taking down the sun, holding it in your hand and giving it to the world was something magnificent.

“I have to accept that I’m maturing as an actress and that my performance will become better and better,” she said.

As there is no mandatory retirement age, she would like to play the high priestess through the 1996 Summer Games, for which Athens is a bidder. She said that she might even consider remaining through the Summer Games in 2,000.

“I will be 40 then,” she said. “I would like to still be considered the symbol of Greek beauty at that age.”