Demis Roussos.

Singer

Born: June 15, 1946)

Died: January 25, 2015.

Demis Roussos, who has died in Athens aged 68, was a renowned Greek singer and a household name in the 1970s and 1980s who sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He was best known for his hits Forever and Ever, Goodbye and Quand je t'aime but was also famous for his long hair and trademark colourful kaftans.

It was an image that sometimes left him open to parody and ridicule. Most famously, it was Roussos who was playing in the background of Mike Leigh's 1970s television play Abigail's Party in which Alison Steadman as Beverly praised the singer. "Would anybody mind if I turn this next track up because it's my favourite Forever and Ever," she said. "Isn't he great? Do you think he's sexy Ange?" Beverly also insisted Roussos didn't "sound fat".

Roussos himself believed his huge popularity in the UK in the 1970s (he had six Top 40 hits in the decade) was partly because of cheaper package holidays. "The reason for my big success was the Brits - they started wanting to go on holidays, like Spain and Greece," he said. "My music came right on time. It was romantic Mediterranean music addressed to all the people who wanted to go on holiday. My music was liked by the people."

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, where there is a large Greek community, Roussos had first came to prominence in the late 1960s with the prog-rock band Aphrodite's Child, in which he played with Vangelis, the Greek composer best known for his score for the film Chariots of Fire, which won him an Oscar in 1982. Aphrodite's Child produced three albums including It's Five O'Clock and The Apocalypse of St John, and enjoyed success across Europe in the late 1960s.

Roussos' early influences included jazz as well as traditional Arab and Greek Orthodox music and when he moved with his family to Greece in the early 1960s, he took music lessons and played in amateur groups. After the success of Aphrodite's Child, he launched a solo career, recording songs such as Forever and Ever, My Friend The Wind, Velvet Mornings, Someday Somewhere, and Lovely Lady Of Arcadia.

By the 1980s, he was living a quieter life, although he was later inspired to take up music again after being caught in a hijacking in 1985. Roussos was among 153 people taken hostage when two Shiite Muslim militiamen hijacked a TWA Boeing 727 on a flight from Athens to Rome, and he spent his 39th birthday on the plane.

He was released unharmed five days later, and at a press conference thanked his captors for giving him a birthday cake. "They gave me a birthday cake and they gave me a guitar, to sing," he said. "They have been very polite and very nice with us."

Later, Roussos suggested that his comments had been misinterpreted as suggesting support for the terrorists. "It is not every day that a pop superstar gets involved with terrorism as a victim," he said, "so the press takes advantage of that to say things they think are funny."

However, the incident did profoundly affect him and encourage him to start recording music again (he released his album The Story of Demis Roussos not long after the hijacking).

He always enjoyed good food, which created problems with his weight which at one point reached 319 pounds. He managed to reduce that by a third in nine months and went on to co-write a book about losing weight.

His music was successful around the world and he lived in Los Angeles, Paris, Monte Carlo, and Athens, but always acknowledged the role the UK played in his career. "This country was one of my most important territories," he once said. "Back in '75 I had five albums in the top 10. Simultaneously. And among them the number one album and the number one single. And my name was mentioned twice or three times in the Guinness Book of Records."

After the announcement of his death, fellow Greek and musician Nana Mouskouri paid tribute to Roussos. "He had a superb voice, he travelled in the world; he loved what he was doing," she said. "He was an artist, a friend. I hope he is in a better world."

A spokesperson for the Hygeia Hospital in Athens, where Roussos was being treated, said the singer had died following a lengthy spell of treatment, but did not give an exact cause of death. Married three times, he is survived by his daughter Emilie and son Cyril