Nick Dennis

Nicholas Canavaras (born Nicolas Caravidas; April 26, 1904 – November 14, 1980), known professionally as Nick Dennis, was a Greek American film actor born in Thessaly, Greece.

Following his arrival in the U.S. in 1914, Dennis attended public schools in Lowell, Massachusetts. After his father's death, he went to live with his sister in Independence, Missouri, where—as Nick Canavaras—he was a student at William Chrisman High School, and where, as a waiter in his brother-in-law's restaurant, he reportedly had many opportunities to serve the future POTUS (then a county judge), Harry S. Truman. Dennis later spent two years at the University of Illinois.

Dennis, who began in films in 1947, was known for playing ethnic types (usually Greek) in films such as Kiss Me Deadly and the Humphrey Bogart film Sirocco. Dennis, who spoke Greek fluently, appeared in a number of television programs in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s including playing the parts of orderly Nick Kanavaras on the medical drama Ben Casey and Uncle Constantine on the detective show Kojak.

Nick Dennis also played the role of Pablo Gonzales in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as its subsequent film version in 1951.

In 1946, Dennis—as Nicolas Canavaras—married Helen Stratas in Toronto, Ontario. After raising two daughters, the couple divorced in 1967, remarried in 1970, and divorced again in 1972. Although records of any subsequent remarriage are not readily apparent, both a 1977 Dennis profile/interview—stating that one of the daughters "lives with Dennis and his wife Hellen"—and the more thorough of his 1980 obituaries would make it appear that a full reconciliation was reached, de facto if not de jure.

On November 14, 1980, having spent the previous six years battling myasthenia gravis and cancer, Dennis died at Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, survived by his daughters and by "Helen Dennis, his wife of 34 years."