Born January 30, 1943 in
Park Slope,
Brooklyn, He attended
Erasmus Hall High School,
New York University, and studied with
Lee Strasberg. In 1963, he made his
Broadway debut in
William Inge's
Natural Affection, alongside
Kim Stanley,
Harry Guardino, and
Tom Bosley. In an interview published later that year in the magazine,
Teen Hit Parader, Rozakis confessed that, as much as he enjoyed his current success, in the long run, he viewed acting as merely the means to an end. In fact, I'd like to achieve the security of a successful actor, then devote myself exclusively to writing. But right now, I'm more valuable to myself as an actor than as a playwright. I'm selling my youth on the stage and screen. This country has a fetish for youth – People can't seem to get enough of it. It's almost pathetic. I'm not so good-looking, but I
am young — and I'm not such a bad actor. In 1970, Rozakis's modern adaptation of
Euripides'
Orestes, starring Rozakis and, with music by Mark Shangold and lyrics by Andrew Amic-Angelo, debuted in 1970, and was revived in February 1973 In his penultimate feature film,
The Cotton Club, Rozakis finally had the opportunity to realize one of his longstanding ambitions, that of portraying one of his earliest role models as a
multi-hyphenate,
Charlie Chaplin, one of those, who, as he put it (also citing
Orson Welles), "did everything". Rozakis's final film,
John Patrick Shanley's
Five Corners, featured Rozakis as one of a pair of neighborhood cops not quite up to the task of rescuing
Jodie Foster's character from the neighborhood bad egg, Heinz (
John Turturro). His portrayal—along Turturro's and that of
Rose Gregorio as Heinz's mother—was dubbed one of the film's "especially great performances" by
Cleveland Plain Dealer entertainment editor, Joanna Connors. A few months after
Five Corners' release, Rozakis's name appeared in the
New York Daily News, as a private citizen and Brooklyn resident, offering his emphatic thumbs up—and unabashed "love letter"–to recently crowned
Oscar-winner, ''
Moonstruck's''
Cher Bono.[As] an actor with many years' experience, I've always maintained that an Academy Award should be given those actors and actresses not only who give a superbrilliant performance in film, but whose characterization and performance somehow make us feel like a zillion dollars and grateful we were born. As brilliant as Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, and poor, dear Sally Kirkland were in their respective movies, it was only Cher who made me feel like a zillion and happy that I was born. Cher, this is my love letter to you! -Greg Rozakis, Brooklyn ==Personal life and death==