Editing Maria Callas (section)

===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}}