Takui Akopyan: One Stellar Senior

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ONE STELLAR SENIOR

Glendale's Takui Akopyan does it all, from performing to writing.

 

 

By CLAUDIA PESCHIUTTA

 

SOUTHWEST GLENDALE -- It's hard to believe Takui Akopyan was once a shy girl whose voice was rarely heard.

At 72, the Glendale resident is as vibrant as the red in her hair. When she isn't working, Akopyan is everything from an actress to a writer to a leader in the senior housing complex where she lives and cares for her 101-year-old mother.

"I cannot stop myself," Akopyan says. "Sometimes, I'm thinking, 'I'm crazy.' "

But, at one time, Akopyan's main role was being a star.

"She was very famous, like a Katharine Hepburn in America," said Zajn Nshanian, an actor and director who lives in Glendale.

Before moving to the U.S. in 1981, Akopyan was known for her television, stage and film work in Armenia.

"I was born an actress," she said.

But it took Akopyan a while to discover her vocation.

"I was a very scared child," she said. "I couldn't talk to people."

While growing up in Greece, Akopyan learned she could sing.

"I had a huge voice," she said. "I started to sing everywhere."

At 13, Akopyan got her first part playing a ghost in a Russian play put on in a community theater. It was there that she discovered the power a performance can have on an audience.

"I saw the white handkerchiefs. They'd been crying," she said. "That gave me a clue that I was an actress."

Akopyan was 16 when she and her family moved to Armenia, where she hoped to work as an actress.

Going against her parents wishes, Akopyan got herself into an acting institute in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and went on to appear in everything from commercials to plays.

Akopyan said she feels comfortable on stage.

"I'm not myself," she said. "I am inside that person's heart."

The actress hopes to share her joy of the stage with the other residents at the senior housing complex and put on a comedic version of "Romeo and Juliet."

"She's very active," Nshanian said. "She's something."

THE AKOPYAN FILE

* NAME: Takui Akopyan.

* AGE: 72.

* RESIDENCE: Glendale.

* INFO: Akopyan has appeared in everything from films to television commercials and performed in several countries.