Σοφία Βέμπο

Sofia Vembo is a Greek singer and actress, known for performing patriotic songs, she was called the "Singer of Victory" ("Τραγουδίστρια της Νίκης") in Greece.

Sofia Vembo's real name is Efi Bembo (Έφη Μπέμπο). She was born on February 10, 1910, in Eastern Thrace, where her father Athanasios Bembo worked in tobacco production. When Efi was 2 years old, the family moved to Constantinople, where her brother Yorgos, sister Aliki, and youngest brother Andreas were born. In 1914, due to the Greek-Turkish population exchange, the family moved again, this time to Volos and there they settled permanently. After completing secondary education, Sofia began working as a cashier to support her family financially. At the same time, Efi became passionate about music, bought a guitar, started learning to play it, and her friend helped in it.

In 1933 (as we can see, at the age of 23), Sofia traveled to Thessaloniki to visit her brother Yorgos, who was studying there, taking her guitar with her. She began playing and singing, and by the end of the journey, all the passengers on the boat were standing around her and applauding. Among the passengers was Konstantinos Tsimbas, a well-known impresario in Thessaloniki, who offered her a job. Upon arriving in Thessaloniki, she discussed the offer with her brother, who agreed, and the next day she began performing, receiving prolonged applause every evening. Within a week, word of Efi reached Athens, and she was invited to work at Fotis Samartzis' theater. Her parents didn't object, and Sofia agreed. In her first performance, she portrayed a gypsy with a guitar and sang the song "Μια γυναίκα πέρασε." At the end of the performance, Sofia took her guitar and started to leave, but the other actors stopped her:
- Where are you going? Don't you hear the crowd shouting "encore"?!
- What does that have to do with me? - she replied, unaware of what it meant.
Four times, Efi returned to perform the song, receiving standing ovations. That same day, she signed a "contract" for 10 000 drachmas - an astronomical sum for a theater singer at the time. It was then that Paul Nor gave her the name Sofia Vembo. Soon after, Sofia began performing at another theater, and her fame reached Egypt, where she gave a highly successful concert in Alexandria. Her songs became hits, and her sister Aliki joined her on stage.

When Sofia Vembo first approached Columbia Records to record, they refused, claiming her voice went beyond the standard soprano range. However, Columbia realized their mistake when her song "Μη ζητάς φιλιά" became extremely popular, and all her subsequent songs were recorded with them. Vembo sang songs with her own lyrics, which also gained great fame. Notably, starting in 1928, the recording company took 10% of each record sold. It was something unprecedented, as they had previously only charged a fixed fee per disc.

On October 28, 1940, Sofia Vembo's songs were supposed to play on the radio, but the broadcast was interrupted with news of Italy's invasion of Greece. From then on, all songs took on a patriotic tone, and Vembo performed satirical, patriotic and wartime songs. Her voice became the voice of Greece and its soldiers. When Nazi troops entered Athens, Vembo moved to Central Anatolia, where she continued singing for Allied forces.

After the war ended in 1949, Sofia established her own theater, the "Vembo Theater." After a long relationship with Mimis Traiforos, Vembo married him in 1957, and they remained together until her death. By the mid-1960s, Vembo began performing less frequently, and by the late 1960s, she stopped altogether. During the Polytechnic uprising, she hid students in her home and refused to hand them over when the police came knocking. Her appearance at a pro-democracy demonstration, singing "Παιδιά της Ελλάδος," brought some solace during those bitter days.

Sofia Vembo died of a stroke on March 11, 1978, and her funeral became a demonstration.

Sofia Vembo remains a symbol of Greece's wartime years. The people idolized her, considering her a national heroine, her gentle voice became the voice of Victory.





Text author: Marina Boronina. The text may be used only with reference to this page or the author.