Bekim Fehmiu: The Kosovo Albanian Actor Who Played Ulysses and Reached Hollywood

Bekim Fehmiu was a Kosovo Albanian actor, born in Sarajevo in 1936 and raised in Prizren, who became the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War, in the words of his obituary in The Telegraph. He played Ulysses for Italian television and led a Paramount picture, and when Western directors suggested a stage name he refused, a friend recalled to Balkan Insight.

He walked away from the stage in 1987 and spent his last two decades almost entirely silent in public (RFE/RL). When he died in Belgrade in 2010, his family carried his ashes to the Lumbardhi river in Prizren, as he had asked (Prishtina Insight).

Fakte të shpejta

• Born June 1, 1936 in Sarajevo (Balkan Insight) to Kosovo Albanian parents; Koha describes the family as a well known one from Gjakova. He grew up in Prizren (Prishtina Insight).
• Breakthrough: the lead role of Beli Bora in Aleksandar Petrović’s “I Even Met Happy Gypsies” (1967), which won the Special Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes (Festival de Cannes) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Academy Awards database).
• Played Ulysses in the RAI series “Odissea” (1968), directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, opposite Irene Papas as Penelope (Il Post).
• American debut: the lead in Paramount’s “The Adventurers” (1970), directed by Lewis Gilbert, according to the AFI Catalog.
• Ended his stage career in 1987 (Hoću u pozorište). He died in Belgrade on June 15, 2010, aged 74 (Balkan Insight), and his ashes were scattered in the Lumbardhi (Bistrica) river in Prizren (RFE/RL).

Në këtë faqe

• From Sarajevo to Shkodër to Prizren
• Belgrade, the Stage and “I Even Met Happy Gypsies”
• Ulysses for Italian Television
• Hollywood and the International Years
• Key Films and Roles
• 1987: Leaving the Stage
• The Memoir, the Family and Prizren
• Why Bekim Fehmiu Matters
• Timeline
• Pyetje të shpeshta

From Sarajevo to Shkodër to Prizren

Bekim Fehmiu was born on June 1, 1936 in Sarajevo (The Telegraph). RFE/RL’s Balkan Service wrote that his parents belonged to the city’s small ethnic Albanian community. The Kosovo daily Koha describes the family as a well known one from Gjakova.

The family did not stay in Bosnia. According to the Serbian theatre portal Hoću u pozorište, they moved to Shkodër after the Kingdom of Yugoslavia collapsed in 1941, and from there to Prizren, where he finished primary school and gymnasium. Cineuropa’s review of the 2023 documentary about him gives the same route to Prizren.

His first stage was in Prishtina. After gymnasium he joined the Albanian drama company of the Regional People’s Theatre, which his Serbian publisher Laguna describes as the only professional theatre in Kosovo at the time.

Belgrade, the Stage and “I Even Met Happy Gypsies”

In 1956 he enrolled at the theatre academy in Belgrade, in the class of the director and professor Mata Milošević (Laguna). Laguna’s author biography says he was admitted on the condition that he learn Serbo-Croatian. He graduated in 1960, according to Hoću u pozorište.

In 1960 he became a full member of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, which Laguna calls the most prestigious theatre in the country at that time. Seven years later he resigned, unhappy with his position there, and became a freelance artist, the same biography says.

By then film had found him. At the Pula festival he won the Silver Arena for acting in 1966 and again in 1967, writes Petrit Imami in his book on Serbs and Albanians through the centuries.

The second of those awards was for the film that changed his life (Imami). In Aleksandar Petrović’s “Skupljači perja,” released in English as “I Even Met Happy Gypsies,” he played Beli Bora, a Roma feather gatherer (Aleksandar Petrović official site). I/E/Të/Të Festival de Cannes database records two prizes for the film in 1967: the Special Grand Prix of the Jury (shared) and the FIPRESCI international critics’ prize (shared). The Academy’s database lists it among the five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1968 ceremony. The Golden Globes awards database lists it as a 1969 nominee in its foreign language film category.

Ulysses for Italian Television

Within a year he was Ulysses. “Odissea,” directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino De Laurentiis with RAI and French and German partners, began on Italian television on March 24, 1968 and ran for eight episodes, according to Il Post and the Italian film magazine Cinematografo.

Irene Papas played Penelope. Cinematografo describes Fehmiu at that moment as a Yugoslav actor of Albanian ethnicity who had just broken through.

The series was shot in color in Greece, Sicily and Dalmatia, though Italians watched it in black and white in 1968 (Cinematografo). It is still available on RaiPlay, and Rai Storia aired it again in July 2026, Il Post reported.

Hollywood and the International Years

The AFI Catalog states that “The Adventurers” (1970) marked his American film debut. It records that Hylda Gilbert, the wife of producer and director Lewis Gilbert, recommended him, that the two men met in Rome while he was filming “The Odyssey,” and that he learned English to secure the role of Dax Xenos.

He was billed first, above Charles Aznavour (AFI Catalog), and Candice Bergen co-starred (The Telegraph).

The Telegraph’s verdict: his Hollywood films had little critical success, and he excelled in European art house cinema and the theatre. He kept working across borders anyway: he led the western “The Deserter” (1971), a De Laurentiis co-production of Italy, Yugoslavia and the United States (AFI Catalog), and starred with Dirk Bogarde and Ava Gardner in “Permission to Kill” (1975) (AFI Catalog). He appeared in Tinto Brass’s “Salon Kitty” (1976) (Cinemateca Portuguesa) and in John Frankenheimer’s “Black Sunday” (1977) for Paramount (AFI Catalog).

By the end of his career he had acted in nine languages, The Telegraph wrote. Prishtina Insight lists them: Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Romani, Turkish, Italian, English, French and Spanish.

Key Films and Roles

Sources put his total at more than 40 films (RFE/RL, The Telegraph) or more than 50 (Laguna, Prishtina Insight). These are the key titles.

One detail about the last title: Imami writes that in his whole film career Fehmiu spoke a single line in Albanian, his mother tongue, and it was in that 1978 film. RFE/RL adds that most of his performances were in Serbo-Croatian.

1987: Leaving the Stage

In early 1987 he returned to the Belgrade stage in “Madame Kollontai,” a play by the Swedish writer Agneta Pleijel directed by Ivana Vujić, playing both Lenin and Stalin (Hoću u pozorište; Koha). It was his last stage role, Imami shkruan.

RFE/RL’s Balkan Service reported that he walked off the stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in protest over growing anti-Albanian sentiment in Slobodan Milošević’s government. The Telegraph wrote that he walked off in the middle of a performance in protest, he said, at Milošević’s hate speech. Hoću u pozorište says he stopped acting that year in protest against anti-Albanian propaganda in the country.

Accounts differ on the details. Imami places the production at the Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade (the theatre portal calls it a co-production of the two houses) and writes that Fehmiu refused to continue after the third performance because of organizational problems. He adds that Fehmiu withdrew from film soon afterward, at the time emergency measures were being applied against Albanians in Kosovo. For background, see A është Kosova shqiptare? dhe Lufta e Kosovës.

RFE/RL dates his last film role to 1998. His son Uliks told reporters that the wars of the 1990s made his father withdraw even more: he “gave up words” and turned them “into silence, into protest,” as The Telegraph quoted him.

The Memoir, the Family and Prizren

He broke that silence once, for a book (RFE/RL). “Blistavo i strašno” (Brilliant and Terrifying) covers his early years (RFE/RL). Balkan Insight reported that he wrote it in 1985 and waited until 2001 to publish it.

A second volume appeared in late October 2012, after his death, his wife told the Belgrade weekly Vreme. Its Albanian translation, by Anton Berishaj, was presented in 2016 at the National Theatre of Kosovo in Prishtina, where his career began, Prishtina Insight reported.

He was married to the Serbian actress Branka Petrić (RFE/RL). They were together for 47 years, by Laguna’s count. They had two sons, Uliks and Hedon (RFE/RL).

Fehmiu died in Belgrade on June 15, 2010, aged 74. Serbia’s interior minister, Ivica Dačić, said he had been found dead in his apartment and that it was assumed to be suicide, Balkan Insight reported that day.

The funeral was held at a cemetery in Belgrade, Balkan Insight reported on June 18. There were no speeches; Branka Petrić stood beside the urn with the family and sang a song (Balkan Insight). The family then traveled to Prizren and scattered his ashes in the river (Balkan Insight), where, in The Telegraph’s words, he used to watch the sunsets as a child.

His name is still on the map in Kosovo. OpenStreetMap shows a street named Bekim Fehmiu in the Lakrishtë area of Prishtina and a pedestrian street of the same name in Prizren’s historic center. In August 2021 DokuFest and the Albanian National Film Archive opened a photo exhibition in Prizren, “Bekim Fehmiu in Albania,” with images from his 1972 visit to Albania, according to DokuFest.

Why Bekim Fehmiu Matters

• He went first. The Telegraph called him the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War. RFE/RL called him the first ethnic Albanian actor to work throughout the whole of Yugoslavia.
• He carried a Cannes winner. The film he led in 1967 took the Special Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes and an Academy Award nomination, according to both institutions’ own databases (Festival de Cannes; Academy Awards).
• He kept his name. Western directors and managers wanted him to take a stage name, his friend Milazim Salihu told Balkan Insight. He recalled the answer: “I don’t need a second name.”
• He made Albanians proud in public. “We were always proud when we heard his name on the international scene,” the Kosovar film director Isa Qosja told RFE/RL.
• He was mourned on both sides. The presidents of Kosovo and Serbia, Fatmir Sejdiu and Boris Tadić, both sent condolences to his family, RFE/RL reported.
• He reached Albania too. Cineuropa writes that the 2023 documentary shows him as a national cultural hero and a window to the world for people in Albania during Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship.

For more profiles, see our list of Shqiptarët e famshëm në histori and our piece on the actress Eliza Dushku.

Timeline

• 1936: Born June 1 in Sarajevo (The Telegraph).
• 1960: Graduates and joins the Yugoslav Drama Theatre (Hoću u pozorište; Laguna).
• 1967: “I Even Met Happy Gypsies” wins two prizes at Cannes (Festival de Cannes).
• 1968: “Odissea” begins on RAI on March 24 (Il Post).
• 1970: “The Adventurers,” his American debut (AFI Catalog).
• 1987: Last stage role, in “Madame Kollontai” (Imami).
• 2001: First volume of “Blistavo i strašno” (Balkan Insight).
• 2010: Dies June 15 in Belgrade (Balkan Insight). Ashes scattered in the Lumbardhi in Prizren (Prishtina Insight).
• 2024: Valmir Tertini’s documentary “Bekim Fehmiu” screens at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival (Cineuropa).

Pyetje të shpeshta

Who was Bekim Fehmiu?

Bekim Fehmiu (1936 to 2010) was a Kosovo Albanian stage and screen actor and one of the biggest stars of Yugoslav cinema. He led the Cannes prize winner “I Even Met Happy Gypsies,” played Ulysses in the Italian series “Odissea,” and starred in Paramount’s “The Adventurers.” The Telegraph described him as the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War.

Was Bekim Fehmiu Albanian?

Yes. He was an ethnic Albanian, born in Sarajevo to Kosovo Albanian parents from a family that Koha describes as well known in Gjakova, and he grew up in Prizren. He lived in Belgrade from his student days and worked mostly in Serbo-Croatian (Imami; RFE/RL). Prishtina Insight lists Albanian first among the nine languages he acted in.

What is Bekim Fehmiu best known for?

Two roles. In the former Yugoslavia it is Beli Bora in Aleksandar Petrović’s “I Even Met Happy Gypsies” (1967), which won the Special Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes (Festival de Cannes) and an Oscar nomination (Academy Awards). In Italy and much of Europe it is Ulysses in RAI’s eight part “Odissea” (1968), opposite Irene Papas (Il Post).

Which Hollywood films was Bekim Fehmiu in?

The AFI Catalog has entries for four of his American or American co-produced features: “The Adventurers” (1970, Paramount, as Dax Xenos), “The Deserter” (1971, as Capt. Victor Kaleb), “Permission to Kill” (1975, with Dirk Bogarde and Ava Gardner) and John Frankenheimer’s “Black Sunday” (1977, as Mohammed Fasil).

Where is Bekim Fehmiu remembered today?

Mostly in Prizren. The city theatre carries his name, and each June people throw flowers into the Lumbardhi where his ashes were scattered, Koha reports. Kosovo’s Ministry of Culture created a national lifetime achievement award in cinematography named after him (Balkan Insight; Koha), and a feature documentary about his life screened at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2024 (Cineuropa).

Burimet

• The Telegraph: Bekim Fehmiu, obituary (July 2010, archived copy)
• RFE/RL Balkan Service: Divided Yugoslavia Unites To Mourn Death Of Actor Bekim Fehmiu (June 24, 2010)
• Balkan Insight: Yugoslav Movie Star Bekim Fehmiu Found Dead (June 15, 2010)
• Balkan Insight: Funeral for Yugoslav Film Star Fehmiu Held (June 18, 2010)
• Balkan Insight: Bekim Fehmiu Remembered in Pristina (June 25, 2010)
• Festival de Cannes: Skupljači perja, 1967 awards
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: The 40th Academy Awards, 1968
• Aleksandar Petrović official site: I Even Met Happy Gypsies
• AFI Catalog: The Adventurers (1970)
• AFI Catalog: The Deserter (1971)
• AFI Catalog: Permission to Kill (1975)
• AFI Catalog: Black Sunday (1977)
• Cinemateca Portuguesa: Salon Kitty, program note (PDF)
• Il Post: Un’altra “Odissea” da vedere o rivedere (July 18, 2026)
• Cinematografo: Odissea prima di Nolan, il leggendario sceneggiato della Rai
• Cineuropa: Review, Bekim Fehmiu (Sarajevo Film Festival, August 2024, archived copy)
• Koha: Bekim Fehmiu is remembered only with flower-throwing in Lumbardh (archived copy)
• Prishtina Insight: Memoirs of an Albanian Yugoslav star come to Prishtina (March 31, 2016)
• Laguna: Bekim Fehmiu, author biography (in Serbian)
• Hoću u pozorište: HuPopedija, Bekim Fehmiju (in Serbian)
• Javni servis: excerpt on Bekim Fehmiu from Petrit Imami’s book “Srbi i Albanci kroz vekove” (in Serbian)
• Vreme: Život sa Bekimom, interview with Branka Petrić (November 28, 2012, in Serbian)
• Danas: Četiri decenije od snimanja “Specijalnog vaspitanja” (December 5, 2016, in Serbian)
• Golden Globes awards database: I Even Met Happy Gypsies
• DokuFest: Bekim Fehmiu in Albania exhibition (August 9, 2021)
• OpenStreetMap: way 172825275, Bekim Fehmiu street, Prishtina
• OpenStreetMap: way 207089343, Bekim Fehmiu street, Prizren

Lexime të Ngjashme

• Famous Albanians in History
• Shqiptaro-amerikanët e famshëm
• Eliza Dushku: Albanian American Actress
• Ismail Kadare: Nobel Nominated Albanian Writer
• Prizren, Kosovo Travel Guide
• Albanian History and Heritage Guide

Autor: Dardanë Halimi

Dardanë Halimi është një shkrimtare dhe profesioniste e komunikimit me titull magjistër në Shkrim, Retorikë dhe Komunikim Teknik nga Universiteti James Madison. Puna e saj përqendrohet në tregimin e historive, përmbajtjen digjitale, arsimin e lartë dhe komunikimin strategjik, me përvojë në shkrimin për organizata akademike, jofitimprurëse dhe marketingu si në Shtetet e Bashkuara ashtu edhe në Kosovë.