Christos Tolera
By the age of 17 Christos Tolera had already been photographed for the Evening Standard, The Face and I.D. magazine, well on his way to becoming a leading light in London's burgeoning underground club scene.
Aged 19 he appeared on the cover of The Face as one of the singers in the then uber-fashionable jazz-latin dance act Blue Rondo A La Turk. They went on to record two albums on the Virgin label with limited success, working with producers such as Godley and Crème, Langer and Winstanley of Madness fame, Steve Brown who produced Wham, and Blondie's producer Mike Chapman.
Alongside his music career Christos began to model in fashion shows and did editorial work for all the major fashion magazines, including Per Lui, Italian Vogue and Elle.
When the group disbanded he started an interior design business working for clients as diverse as Joseph and The Mean Fiddler as well as many private residential properties. The works appeared in publications such as The World of Interiors, The Face, Elle and I.D. and also on fledgling interior decorating TV programmes.
Throughout the 1980's Christos continued to perform and appeared in videos for Spandau Ballet (To Cut A long Story Short), Sade (When Am I Gonna Make A Living?), Eurythmics (Wide Eyed Girl), Bananarama (Preacherman), Holly Johnson (Americanos), Terence Trent D'Arby (Sign Your Name), Michael Jackson (Give In To Me) and many more.
In 1986 Christos starred in a short film directed by Oscar winner, John Roberts, called So What. This was to appear as the supporting feature for Withnail And I at the London film festival.
By 1988 he appeared in his first of many commercials, which have spanned the last 18 years. This was for Phileas Phogg tortilla chips directed by John Lloyd from Blackadder and Spitting Image. Christos went on to act in commercials for Mercury One to One, The Observer, Gini soft drink, Sony Playstation, a non-alcoholic Swedish beer and a Got Milk campaign for America amongst many others. He was also the voiceover for a series of ads for The Sun newspaper as well as doing Radio ads for The New Observer magazine.
Christos continued to be in demand as a fashion catwalk model and travelled extensively modelling for Yohji Yamamoto, Commes Des Garcon, Men's Bigi in Japan, Katherine Hamnett, and once appeared as the only male model in a John Galliano show escorting onto the stage supermodel Linda Evangelista.
At the end of the 80's he abandoned the interior design business when the recession hit property development and began hosting warehouse parties and a private members night called Quiet Storm. The clientele at Quiet Storm was to include Brian Ferry, Michael Hutchence, Kylie, Kevin Costner, a 16 year old Kate Moss and just about anyone who was anyone or planning to be.
Christos left London in 1993 for the more laid back Bristol as London's excesses began to take their toll. In this more forgiving atmosphere he returned to his first love of Painting whilst continuing to act in commercials. He had a couple of exhibitions, which received favourable coverage in the press.
Coming back to London after living in New York for a while in 1997, he got involved in the alternative comedy cabaret scene whose luminaries included Steve Furst as Lenny Beige and David Walliams of Little Britain. Christos developed a character called Takis Souvlakis who was around for a year or so before getting arrested for performing lewd acts on unsuspecting sheep in Kentish Town City farm.
He went on to compere and sing at a ‘Rat Pack' inspired night at London's Empire Ballroom and was to host a comedy cabaret club by the name of Le Boom Boom.
In 2000 Christos went back into education and came away with a first class honours degree in fine Art in 2003.
He continues to paint and exhibit whilst maintaining a pared down but ever present acting career. The last few years have seen him play King Midas in a TV drama documentary and also present and narrate in a BBC series called Head To Toe about men's fashion. He has appeared as a talking head in programmes about the New Romantics, 80's Club Culture and in a film about the unseen homeless called 100 doors. He has appeared in many publications including the Boy George biography, Take it like A Man, the Leigh Bowery biography, Fashion Forever by Iain Mckell, Nick Knight's photography book, Made in the U.K. by Janette Beckmann, The New English Dandy, The New Romantics and The Look by Paul Gorman.
He has been appointed Creative Associate for Art for .Cent Magazine and writes for this Tri-annual publication
