Background
Her mother originated in Kalymnos and her father in Izmir. As a child, her father, a Partisan was killed in the 1946-1949 civil war on Crete where she had been born and bred. Her mother moved with her three children to the port of Piraeus to try and make ends meet.
Career
At 12, she left school to help earn a living for her family selling bread and lemons in a cart she pushed around Piraeus"s desolate streets. The couple married within a year and Sakellariou settled down to bring up three more sons. The 70s saw a series of hits, including Kathe Iliovasilema (Every Sunset) and Oi Andres kai oi Handres (Men and Beads).
She remained popular, though her efforts to follow music trends through the 1980s and 1990s failed to match her earlier success.
She had numerous hits, including "Istoria Mou, Amartia Mou", "An Kano Atakti Zoi", "Aftos O Anthropos", "Paranomi Mou Agapi" and "Ena Tragoudi". On 14 March 2010, Alpha television ranked Sakellariou the 17th top-certified female artist in the nation"s phonographic era (since 1960).
Sakellariou died on 6 August 1999, aged 64 after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer, after spending 40 days at Ygeia Hospital in Athens after returning from treatment at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She was buried on 9 August in the First Cemetery of Athens.
In the 1973 blockbuster The Exorcist, Jason Miller starred as Greek American Father Damien Karras, one of the priests who exorcised young Regan.
In one scene, Karras’ mother, played by Greek actress Vasiliki Maliaros, is listening to a Greek radio station broadcasting the song Istoria mou, amartia mou.