I decided to make Lori Loughlin's character in Full House different. Make it mine, and how I would've wanted her to be on the show.
In this story, "Aunt Becky" is "Aunt Olia", she's a Greek-American city girl, a guitar-playing rock chick, much like...
By 1977, I'd been a familiar face on TV for about 7 years, but I was offered a role that was the BEST one of my career! I got chosen to play Nancy Drew! And, given my history of modelling for book covers, I'd get to be the model for Nancy Drew on the new editions, as well as the new books that were coming out!
My gosh I was so excited! I got to do mysteries set all over the world, and because Greek is my first language, I even provided my own dubbing for when they broadcast the show in Greece! Terese was also happy for me, and I appealed to the producers to give her a part too, at least a guest part, to help get her going. After all, she was like a sister to me.
It worked, and Terese was given a guest starring role as a young woman who needed my help as Nancy Drew!
We had a great time working on the set together and when we returned home, we were exhausted but satisfied.
I remember one episode was pretty intense, I actually had to use a gun, yes a GUN for a scene! I think I was the first Nancy Drew actress to actually use a gun on the show.
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I went to Therese's place for a night one Friday night, where her mom served us pasta for dinner. One thing I learned a lot as a young Greek girl was to cook. Every Sunday after church, my godmother (primarily) would teach me to cook traditional Greek dishes and desserts. I don't like to brag, but I was surprised at the number of people that loved my cooking. My specialties were Greek biscuits, baklava and galaktoboureko.
When I was a kid, I LOVED my godmother's kourabiedes. Those are Greek short bread biscuits. Every year we'd attend the feast day of St Olivia of Palermo (my patron saint, who also happened to be Jesse's patron saint) and Thea Dianthe knew how much I loved her 'diamond shaped biscuits' as I used to call them when I was very young, and she made them just for me!
So for this one on one slumber party, I taught Therese and her mother to bake Greek biscuits, and they loved them!
"You gotta give be the recipe, Ophelia." Said Therese's mom. "These are SO good! And you're such a great cook!" Then she turned her attention to Therese. "Now you don't have an excuse not to help me with dinner, Therese!" She joked.
I had such a great time with her. We had a box of chocolates while watching an ABBA special before bed.
The following evening, I was back at my godparents' house reading my script so I could learn my lines for the coming week. Then afterwards, I listened to some ABBA in bed. I always listened to ABBA before church. God bless Agnetha & Frida!
Ever since I was a little girl, I always carried a little icon of St Olivia (my patron saint) that my godparents gave me when I was a little girl, as well as a palm-sized icon of Mary and baby Jesus.
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ABBA The Movie was also released in 1977, and we saw a special advanced screening of it in Greece. We were in Greece for Christmas that year, and the movie house was walking distance from our hotel.
We didn't care who else was in the movie house, my cousins and I sang our hearts out! We walked back to our hotel feeling absolutely THRILLED!
"Hey girls, how was the movie?" Asked my Aunt Pelagia.
"It was absolutely fantastic, we had a ball!" I replied to her.
"And we also got to see a little of what Australia looks like!" Added my cousin Sapphira (Aunt Pelagia's daughter).
"Why couldn't I go?" Asked my young cousin Aphroditi, Sapphira's sister.
"Because you're too young, your cousins are big girls." Said Aunt Pelagia. I couldn't help but feel for her a little. But I understood where Aunt Pelagia was coming from.
After a while it was getting close to bedtime. Aphroditi and I were very close, so we were sharing a bed (she was 9 at the time) and all my female cousins as well as my friend Therese were like my sisters since I didn't have any sisters.
Aphroditi and I always had such fun together, and she could be real funny! That night, we were throwing each other on the bed.
"Be careful you two, so you don't fall." Said her father, my uncle Elias. Aphroditi had clearly gotten her humor from him.
Early that morning we woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, so we made nonsensical, singsong verbals and laughed our heads off!
"Ladies..." Theo Elias tried to quiet us, but we didn't listen.
The following night, we slept in the same room as Yiayia Fanouria, with us girl cousins sleeping in one bed and Yiayia Fanouria sleeping in the bed opposite us, and we were having a verbal "play fight", if you will. What happened earlier was that we'd found a piece of glass, and we were playfully arguing about whether it was a sphere (her) or a cube (me). We were laughing so loudly as we messed around that Yiayia Fanouria couldn't sleep!
"I'm gonna have to sleep in the basement since you two won't stop quarreling." She said. Eventually we did fall asleep, and the next morning when Yiayia Fanouria and Theo Elias woke up, and had breakfast, we were still asleep in the same room.
"Look how sweet they are!" Whispered Theo Elias. "I'll see you later, babies." He said while we slept on, as he left.
Later that morning, Aphroditi's mother, Thea Irini (Ειρήνη) took us to the church and then for a day out on the town in Athens before we met the rest of the family for dinner at this restaurant that an Ancient Greek theme going. And I must say, they did it really well, with the decor and all those small details - even the waiters and waitresses wore Ancient Greek costumes! It was just too cool!
