By Judy Shields
Los Angeles, California (The Hollywood Times) 08/04/2023
It’s one of the greatest runs in television. During his more than four-decade run on Days of Our Lives, Thaao Penghlis has kept the plots twisting and the passions burning by playing two look-a-like villains, Count Tony DiMera and his impersonator Andre DiMera.
But the Australian-born star is much more than a guy who knows how to deliver a nasty line and take a woman’s slap. A world traveler and celebrated host of Hollywood dinner parties, Penghlis has authored the memoir Places: The Journey of My Days, My Lives, and the cookbook Seducing Celebrities One Meal at a Time.
And now this child of Greek immigrants is pouring his own passions for all things Greece into a new podcast, The Lost Treasures, a thrilling detective story-style exploration of Greece’s greatest contribution to the world’s literature, the poet Homer.
In a rollicking Mediterranean-hopping adventure, The Lost Treasurers explores the Iliad and the Odyssey through the amazing life of German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who changed history when he discovered the real-life locations and treasures in the epic poems.
Written and narrated Penghlis, the podcast draws on his exclusive access to 60,000 pages of long-hidden documents and diaries. “Against all odds, Heinrich Schliemann proved that the myths of Troy and the myths of Mycenae really happened,” says Penghlis. “For more than 20 years, my interest in this subject never waned. Two visits to Troy, five to Greece, I completed the journey. And I’m still wanting more.”
Lost Treasures will release on Tuesday, September 5th and will end with the (fourth) conclusion episode on Tuesday October 17th.
The Hollywood Times had the opportunity to catch up with Thaao. Enjoy our conversation.
About The Lost Treasures
Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Thaao Penghlis always dreamed of becoming an archeologist, dreaming of one day unlocking the secrets of the history of his Greek ancestors he can trace all the way back to ancient Alexandria. “But as my acting career took over my interest in the subject was instead translated to taking journeys to the historical places that I explored with guides,” Penghlis says.
Now, the star of Days of Our lives, TV’s Mission: Impossible reboot, and movies and plays is the one playing the guide with his new podcast, “The Lost Treasures,” a deep dive into the life of German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann.
In the 19th century, Schliemann rocked the academic world by establishing the real-life locations in the Iliad and the Odyssey. His discoveries include the glittering cache of gold and other artifacts linked to the Homeric king Priam in the actual site of Troy, in modern-day Hissarlik, Turkey.
“The poems of Homer were part of the education I chose for myself, collecting knowledge from cultures that gave me a greater meaning and understanding of that path,” says Penghlis. “When I finally visited Schliemann’s gravesite, it brought me closer to him, like a long-lost relative that I grew to love.”
To research the podcast, Penghlis embarked on his own odyssey, gaining exclusive access to research materials with a little help from his notoriety playing a master-of-disguise Nicholas Black on 1980s Mission: Impossible in the 1980s.
“I had walked into the Archaeological Museum in Athens when an employee recognized me from Mission Impossible,” says Penghlis. “He gave me a huge embrace and wanted to know what he could he do to welcome me in Greece.”
Within minutes, Penghlis’ fan had set him up a meeting with the Greek minister of culture and an exclusive visit to a library containing 60,000 pages of Schliemann’s documents and diaries.
“These materials took me to magnificent sites in in Athens, Mycenae and Troy where Schliemann’s extraordinary finds changed the course of history and smashed the myths of ancient Greek heroes,” says Penghlis.
Penghis now shares those discovers in The Lost Treasures. The four-episode podcast includes three story chapters enhanced with immersive audio effects and a fourth that features a reading from Penghlis about why he wrote the story and his inspiration and drive to do so.
“My purpose in telling these stories of Lost Treasures is to romance my audience, inspire them with the notion that ‘Gods of Men’ once walked in these lands of my ancestors,” he says.
Lost Treasures will release on Tuesday, September 5th and will end with the (fourth) conclusion episode on Tuesday October 17th. The show will be available on all major podcast platforms – Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, etc.
Podcast Socials:
https://www.instagram.com/
https://www.facebook.com/
Thaao Penghlis’ Socials:
https://twitter.com/
