Telly Savalas, the bald-headed Greek actor who played movie villains but gained his most fame as a hard-boiled, lollipop-loving New York City detective in the 1970s television series “Kojak,” died of prostate cancer.23 Jan 1994. Early life. Aristotelis Savalas was born in Garden City, New York, on January 21, 1922, the second of five children born to ethnic Greek parents Christina (née Kapsalis; 1904–1988), an artist who was a native of Sparta, and Nick Savalas ( c. 1883–1948), a restaurant owne

#OnThisDay in 1922: Telly Savalas was born, as Aristotelis Savalas, in New York. He appeared on Wogan back in 1988 talking about his time as Kojak and, in real life, becoming a father again. | BBC Archive

Back in 1974, Kojak was one of the top rated shows in the UK, and so Bob Wellings and Nationwide invited Telly Savalas to their cosy cutting room to talk about his career to date. | BBC Archive