All my nuanced questions about Greek-Australian culture were thrown out the window. On the phone with a character known for her catchphrase “How embarrassment!” and whose life philosophy is, “The higher the hair, the closer to God”, I was left with no choice – I had to bring out my inner wog and improvise.
Effie has been through her fair-share of boyfriends – although she’s still adamant about her virginity. When it comes to men, especially Greek men, how much hair is too much hair?
“Head’s important, I’ll take a bit of armpit but I don’t want the 360 chest-into-the-back situation,” she clarifies. “I want to be able to see that they have legs. I don’t want any fire danger situation where we can’t see skin. I don’t mind a bit of facial growth – it’s nice not to be the only one who has it.”
Effie was a fan favourite in the popular Australian series Acropolis Now, which ran for five seasons in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. Effie played alongside Nick Giannopoulos, who would go on to co-write and star alongside Vince Colosimo in the greatest Australian film of all time, The Wog Boy. I wondered how Effie had changed since her hairdressing days in Acropolis Now.
“I’ve got a baby. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a miracle happened last year. We’re not sure if it was an immaculate conception or it was that public toilet seat I sat on in April last year at Tullamarine Airport. Either way, I was blessed with a child, whose name is Aphrodite. Children are not cheap. Baby formula, baby pilates, laser hair removal – that’s just the start of it.”
Effie’s popularity in Acropolis Now almost trumped the show itself, and she would eventually be given her own spin-off series. With this celebrity status, which other celebrity would she most like to bump into at the Tullamarine Airport toilets?
“Obviously not George Michael – he’d be my competition,” she says. “Look at Clooney’s wife. She nabbed him because she’s got a law degree. She was smart enough to know how to play him. Alright, she’s good-looking and young, and got a very good body, and an accent – well I’ve got that. I’ve got the body. I’m smart. I’ve had three 21st birthdays so it’s really hard to decipher how old I am exactly. I do not have a law degree but I have a hairdressing diploma.”
I personally know that growing up Greek brings a lot of expectations from your family. You’re constantly judged on the quality of your subwoofer, the quantity of your laps down Chapel Street and how much you and your spotter can bench. What was Effie’s upbringing like?
“I didn’t come from a privileged background,” she explains. “Add the Greek factor on top, which is very high pressure. You’ve always gotta keep an eye on what the community thinks. It’s like the Dow Jones, every day you gotta check, ‘Does the community think I’m a slag? Are they cut because I’ve got a Logie? Are they gonna give me the evil eye because their daughters aren’t as good-looking?’ But I worked myself through it because I’ve got faith in myself – the ultimate God – and the god above.”
Effie will be performing in A Date with Effie in Yarraville, a suburb which is apparently “just like Port Melbourne but nothing like it.”
“I do this show, A Date with Effie, to look for a guy. If he’s already at the show, he’s already got the hots for me. The show is me talking about my past, and I hope I’m not stating the obvious when I say I’m still a virgin even though I had a baby. I made a choice on the day of the birth to not compromise the proof of my virginity. So I come with a massive asset.
“The first half I spill my guts. It’s like a confessional. I go through my past, my decision-makings, my sexual experience which was quite limited – but nevertheless I fumbled around. Some stuff happened in car parks, which I go into.
“Then I pick three random guys from the audience who appear to be worthy, and I take them on stage and get to know them, find out what they come with and what they don’t come with. Then the audience chooses who I go with and that’s why the show’s called A Date with Effie. Leading up to Christmas, what better gift than to say, “Oh my god, I went to just perve on her and now we’re getting married, and it’s only gonna cost me everything I’ve got.”
While running out of hair gel is one of the biggest crises a Greek can face, the current economic crisis is also a desperate situation.
“Does anyone say, ‘My life’s better because there’s pasta in the world?’ No. When you’re Greek and go, ‘Mathematics – I can work out how much someone is ripping me off’ or ‘How much I can rip someone off?’ who do you thank? Not the pasta-people. You thank the Greeks. The Greeks are suffering – ‘yesh’, they’re drinking coffee and suffering – but they’re suffering nevertheless.
“There’s a frugality – if there’s such a word – in their lifestyle. In my show I say, ‘Of course they retire early – they’re tired from having invented everything.’ You can justify it when you’re Greek.”
BY NICK TARAS
