At the age of 18, Mastorakis as a young reporter with the Greek newspaper
Ethnikos Kirikas scored his first international scoop, an exclusive interview with the exiled Princess
Soraya. Later, as an investigative reporter for the daily
Messimvrini, adding to multiple award-winning reports, he created the first "automobile page" in Greek press. In his last job as a reporter for the daily
Apogevmatini he posed as a musician for the group of popular singer
Giannis Poulopoulos and gained access to
Aristotle Onassis’ yacht, the
Christina where Onassis was hosting
Jackie and
Ted Kennedy. He used a Minox camera hidden behind the strings of his guitar to take photos but was discovered by Ted Kennedy's security men and, although managing to fly out of
Skorpios with his negatives intact, he was later arrested by the junta's secret police and detained for the night while his negatives were discovered and confiscated. Although his article about that night being heavily censored he broke the news of Onassis and Jackie Kennedy getting married months before the official announcement. Mastorakis’ time on board the Onassis yacht was later described in detail in both
Ari and
Nemesis, by Onassis’ biographer
Peter Evans, who writes: "Onassis used his pull with the colonels and Mastorakis was picked up in Athens… later Ari showed me a copy of Mastorakis’ original story which had been cut to ribbons by the military censors". He was already a radio personality since the late 1950s, as Mastorakis was considered by many to be the DJ who brought international pop to Greek radio. In all, he hosted and produced more than 22 different radio shows. In the late sixties, he was introduced to
The Beatles and became friendly with
John Lennon in particular. On April 17, 1967 he produced the first ever international pop concert in Athens, booking the
Rolling Stones for a memorable albeit troubled concert, dominated by police and amidst the riots which regularly occurred in Athens at the time. The military coup came four days later. As a lyricist and record producer, he launched the careers of almost all of the Greek pop groups of the sixties, working mainly with the Forminx and their keyboard player Vangelis Papathanassiou, later known as the film score composer
Vangelis. Mastorakis was instrumental in the creation of Greek television in the late 1960s. From early 1966 (before the junta years) and until 1973 while Greece was under the Regime of the Colonels, he produced and hosted numerous entertainment shows in the army-owned YENED TV station. While the station's primary goal was to propagandize for the army his shows were mostly apolitical fare, such as game shows and celebrity interviews, including a Greek version of
This Is Your Life, and he was among the most popular TV personalities of the time. He produced local versions of many international formats (
Candid Camera,
To Tell The Truth) and worked for both YENED and ERT, the country's national TV network. In addition to his shows he produced and directed
Alati kai Piperi (
Salt and Pepper), hosted by noted Greek columnist Freddy Germanos. One of the highlights of that show was when Mastorakis brought John Lennon and Yoko Ono into the military TV's two-camera studio. He wrote, produced and directed dramatic series and variety shows as well as the short-lived breakthrough sci-fi episodic
Invasion From Another Planet, the first on Greek TV to be shot on film. However his TV career took some dramatic turns as he was ousted twice by the junta, the unofficial reason being cited "for speaking freely". The first time that his shows were abruptly banned was for his comment to a 6-year-old girl (on a family show) "how can you ever buy a Christmas tree with the cost of life as they are today", a comment which was considered by the military regime as "anti-government propaganda". At the time he was serving in the navy and eventually returned to TV, only to be ousted (by order of dictator
Georgios Papadopoulos) because he interviewed a 12-year-old girl who had married and had a baby. Papadopoulos considered the interview as "corruption of ethics for the Greek family". For almost a year, Mastorakis was producing "underground" with the silent consent of YENED's management until his final return. His career as a journalist also had clashes with the junta. After writing a long piece about
Mikis Theodorakis’ concert in London, for the weekly magazine
Epikera, he was arrested and detained at the ESA (Military Police) headquarters for a day. Later on, publisher Georgios Athanassiadis, hired Mastorakis for the daily
Vradini (which had been shut down by the junta and was about to be published again) only to find out from Dimitrios Ioannidis (head of the Military Police and later the dictator who replaced instigating a bloodier junta) that the newspaper's permit had been withdrawn because "Athanassiadis had hired anarchist-communists like Mastorakis". ==Junta controversy==