Editing Maria Callas (section)

==Early life==
===Family life, childhood and move to Greece===
[[File:Kallas House.JPG|thumb|upright|The apartment house in Athens where Callas lived from 1937 to 1945]]
The name on Callas's New York birth certificate is Sophie Cecilia Kalos,{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=35}} although she was christened Maria Anna Cecilia Sophia Kalogeropoulos ({{langx|el|Μαρία Άννα Καικιλία Σοφία Καλογεροπούλου|links=no}}).{{sfn|Jellinek|1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell/page/4 4]}} She was born at [[Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital]] (now the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center) on December 2, 1923, to Greek parents, George Kalogeropoulos (c. 1881–1972) and Elmina Evangelia "Litsa," née Demes, originally Dimitriadou (c. 1894–1982). Callas's father had shortened the surname Kalogeropoulos, first to Kalos and subsequently to Callas to make it more manageable.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=36}}

George and Litsa Callas were an ill-matched couple from the beginning. George was easy-going and unambitious, with no interest in the arts, and Litsa was vivacious and socially ambitious and had dreamed of a life in the arts, which her middle-class parents had stifled in her childhood and youth.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=27}} Litsa's father, Petros Dimitriadis (1852–1916), was in failing health when Litsa introduced George to her family. Petros, distrustful of George, had warned his daughter, "You will never be happy with him. If you marry that man, I will never be able to help you." Litsa had ignored his warning but soon realized that her father was right.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=27–30}} The situation was aggravated by George's philandering and was improved neither by the birth of their daughter Yakinthi (later called "Jackie"), in 1917, nor the birth of their son Vassilis, in 1920. Vassilis's death from [[meningitis]] in the summer of 1922 dealt another blow to the marriage.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

In 1923, after realizing that Litsa was pregnant again, George moved his family to the United States, a decision that Yakinthi recalled was greeted with Litsa "shouting hysterically" followed by George "slamming doors".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=32}} The family left for New York in July 1923, moving first into an apartment in the heavily immigrant neighborhood of [[Astoria, Queens]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Litsa was convinced that her third child would be a boy, and her disappointment at the birth of another daughter was so great that she refused even to look at her new baby for four days.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=35}} Maria was christened three years later, in 1926, at the [[Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity]].{{sfnm|Jellinek|1986|1p=4|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|2pp=36–37}} When Maria was four, George Callas opened his own pharmacy, settling the family in Manhattan on 192nd Street in [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]], where Callas grew up. Around the age of three, Maria's musical talent began to manifest itself, and after Litsa discovered that her younger daughter also had a voice, she began pressing "Mary" to sing. Callas later recalled, "I was made to sing when I was only five, and I hated it."{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=40}} George was unhappy with his wife favoring their elder daughter, as well as the pressure put upon young Mary to sing and perform,<ref name="stassinopoulos">{{cite book|last=Stassinopoulos|first=Ariana|author-link=Arianna Stassinopoulos|title=Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend|publisher=Simon and Schuster|location=New York|year=1981|isbn=978-0-671-25583-1|url=https://archive.org/details/mariacallaswoman00stas}}</ref> and Litsa was increasingly embittered with George and his absences and infidelity and often violently reviled him in front of their children.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=41-42, 74–75}} The marriage continued to deteriorate, and in 1937 Litsa returned to Athens with her two daughters.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p=75-76}}

===Relationship with mother===
Callas's relationship with her mother continued to erode during the years in Greece, and in the prime of her career it became a matter of great public interest, especially after a 1956 cover story in ''Time'' magazine, which focused on their relationship, and later by Litsa's book, ''My Daughter Maria Callas'' (1960). In public, Callas recalls the strained relationship with Litsa on her unhappy childhood spent singing and working at her mother's insistence, saying,
<blockquote>My sister was slim and beautiful and friendly, and my mother always preferred her. I was the ugly duckling, fat and clumsy and unpopular. It is a cruel thing to make a child feel ugly and unwanted&nbsp;... I'll never forgive her for taking my childhood away. During all the years I should have been playing and growing up, I was singing or making money. Everything I did for them was mostly good and everything they did to me was mostly bad.<ref name="Time 1956">{{citation|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,867205,00.html|title=The Prima Donna|magazine=Time|date=October 29, 1956|volume=68|issue=18}} See also [https://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601561029,00.html the cover].</ref></blockquote>

In 1957 she told Chicago radio host Norman Ross Jr, "There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility."{{sfn|Jellinek|1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell/page/316 316]}}

Biographer Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis says that Litsa's hateful treatment of George in front of their young children led to resentment and dislike on Callas's part.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=37–38, 62, 75–76}} According to both Callas's husband and her close friend [[Giulietta Simionato]], Callas related to them that her mother, who did not work, pressed her to "go out with various men", mainly Italian and German soldiers, to bring home money and food during the [[Axis occupation of Greece]] during World War II. Simionato was convinced that Callas "managed to remain untouched" but never forgave her mother for what she perceived as a kind of prostitution forced on her.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=241–247}} Litsa, beginning in New York and continuing in Athens, had adopted a questionable lifestyle that included not only pushing her daughters into degrading situations to support her financially but also entertaining Italian and German soldiers during the Axis occupation.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=75, 108–121, 242–247}}

In an attempt to patch things up with her mother, Callas took Litsa along on her first visit to Mexico, in 1950, but this only reawakened the old frictions and resentments, and after leaving Mexico, they never met again. After a series of angry and accusatory letters from Litsa lambasting Callas's father and husband, Callas ceased communication with her mother altogether.<ref name="scott" />

A 1955 ''Time'' story<ref name="Time 19562">{{citation |title=The Prima Donna |date=October 29, 1956 |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,867205,00.html |magazine=Time |volume=68 |issue=18}} See also [https://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601561029,00.html the cover].</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite magazine |title=Time Magazine Cover: Maria Callas – Oct. 29, 1956 |url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19561029,00.html |access-date=April 30, 2022 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |language=en-us}}</ref><ref name="Music: The Prima Donna">{{Cite magazine |date=October 29, 1956 |title=Music: The Prima Donna |language=en-US |magazine=Time |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,867205,00.html |access-date=April 30, 2022 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref> covered Callas's response to her mother's request for $100, "for my daily bread." Callas had replied, "Don't come to us with your troubles. I had to work for my money, and you are young enough to work, too. If you can't make enough money to live on, you can jump out of the window or drown yourself." Callas justified her behavior&nbsp;... "They say my family is very short of money. Before God, I say why should they blame me? I feel no guilt and I feel no gratitude. I like to show kindness, but you mustn't expect thanks, because you won't get any. That's the way life is. If some day I need help, I wouldn't expect anything from anybody. When I'm old, nobody is going to worry about me."<ref name=":02" />