"I'm 69 years old," says Nickolas Vassili, "and I'm in fighting condition. I work out five times a week (boxing and lifting weights), and my health is perfect." He has not had a cold or the flu in 20 years, a stomachache in 35 years, or a headache in 46 years.
When he was 13, Nick had a nightmare that he was being shot in the temple. He awoke with an excruciating migraine, and continued to suffer migraines for the next decade. A hypnotist in Cleveland finally cured him of headaches, even ordinary ones. Thus began a lifelong interest in health care.
He's now writing a book on American health care. "It is highly confrontational," says Nick, "but what I see is just horrendous! The [United States] spends more than half the money spent worldwide on health care, yet we are only 5 percent of the world population, and we are ranked 37th in the quality of our health care."
Nick believes his book, entitled "So Much Pleasure, So Little Pain," will be the most comprehensive on the subject. "There are many other books about various aspects of health care," he says, "but they are fragmented, written by experts in just one field. I'm looking at the total picture."
The book will be published in July by AuthorHouse, a vanity press. It is more than 700 pages long because it's also a diet and workout guide, based on Nick's own practices-as well as an autobiography.
All the world's a stage
Nick was born Oct. 10, 1936, in Manhattan, the younger of two sons (his older brother Marco now lives in California). His father Nickolas emigrated from Greece; his mother Stella, from Poland. They met and married in America. Eventually the elder Nickolas opened a restaurant in Brooklyn, and the family moved to that borough. "My father was such a good chef," says Nick. "It was said he could cook the shoes on your feet and they would melt in your mouth."
In 1954, Nick graduated from Brooklyn's James Madison High School and immediately joined the Air Force. Several now-illustrious theater people graduated from the same high school, and Nick headed down that path himself, even in the military. He was stationed at St. John's, Newfoundland, where he managed a USO show and wrote for the News 'n' Blue, an Air Force newspaper.
Discharged in 1958, he followed a woman he loved from Newfoundland to Cleveland. The romance didn't last, but he stayed in Cleveland for two years, worked for Arthur Murray Dance Studios and was cured of headaches.
Back in New York City in 1960, he concentrated on theater work. In summer he sang and emceed in the Borscht Belt, the string of resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York frequented by Ashkenazi Jews.
Nick met his first wife, Betty Ruth, in 1964. "I was directing 'Under the Yum-Yum Tree' off Broadway," he recalls, "and Betty auditioned. She got the role, and she got me." The marriage lasted only a year, but in that time the couple started what Nick claims was the first-ever show-business consulting service, as well as an acting school. "One of our first students was Morgan Freeman," says Nick. "Most people don't know that he's a very good dancer."
A man called Master
Meanwhile Nick's interest in health care was growing. His research led him to Daytop Village, a drug rehabilitation center on Staten Island. He found himself delving into his own personal problems-though they were not drug-related-and attending weekly group therapy sessions as well as marathon sessions on weekends. Eventually he became a semi-resident at Daytop, which led to his assuming the executive directorship of Encounter, a community-based drug prevention program in Greenwich Village. He held that position for three years.
In 1970 Nick started his own program, called Journey, and met a woman named Nan at a YWCA swimming pool. He married her a year later. Soon after, 30 members of Journey formed a community and moved to East Quogue, out on Long Island. Nick is quick to point out that it was not a commune; traditional family structure was maintained, but the community was self-sustaining in many ways, with its own licensed school.
Still in Manhattan, before joining the Journey community, Nick and Nan had their first child, son William. Then they moved to East Quogue, where Nan gave birth to their daughter, Jenny Anna, delivered by Nick.
Over the years he became known as "group master," leading more than 4,000 group therapy sessions.
When Journey disbanded in 1979, Nick and his family moved to a village on the Greek island of Paros, where his father and ancestors before him were born. The cornerstone of the house in which Nick's father was born is inscribed with the date 1624.
In Greece, Nick published foreign newspapers, in English and German, out of an office in Athens. During this time, two other daughters were born: Julie Irini and Eleanor Belle, delivered by Nick as well.
In 1989, after 10 years in Greece, the family moved to Victoria, B.C. They lived there two years while Nick worked on a TV script based on his experiences with Encounter, then moved to Hollywood so he could peddle his script. It didn't sell.
"Hollywood had become more interested in sitcoms," he says. Nonetheless, the family stayed for five years while Nick worked as an actor. "I had bit parts in hundreds of movies," he says. "One of my favorites was playing a pirate in Spielberg's 'Hook.'"
In 1996, the family vacationed in Greece, then relocated to Vancouver, B.C. Before long, Nan and Nick's children were asking to move to Seattle. William especially, a guitarist, was passionate about music and believed Seattle was the place to be. By the end of the year, the family was living on Queen Anne.
A year later Nick started an ethnically diverse music and dance ensemble called Children of the Revolution, which he produced under the rubric World Music 2000. The ensemble's first performance was at the Seattle Fringe Festival, requiring translation of Greek lyrics into English.
Greek for 'freedom'
In the summer of 2002 Nick lost his lease on the Uptown office on Republican Street from which he had managed Children of the Revolution. That sparked his move into his present location on First Avenue North. The new space has a storefront, so he began to sell CDs of Northwest world music artists, renaming the business Elefthería-the Greek word for freedom
Two years ago, Nick relinquished his role as producer to focus on his book. "It's the biggest thing in my life," he says. "I hope it will help legions of people."
At the same time he began to diversify the shop. "I sell an eclectic collection of things I really like," he says. These include paintings by his daughter Julie and Native art by Soaring Eagle Woman, a Freeland Cherokee artist; jewelry, cosmetics and pashimas (long Indian scarves worn by both women and men); candles and incense; hats and blankets; leather-bound journals; prayer wheels sculpted by Bellingham ceramic artist Chris Moench; a book on dentistry, which Nick helped write; and succulent houseplants Nick grows himself. "I'm an aloe vera expert," says Nick. "Aloe vera has almost human traits. Even the medical fraternity has not attacked its medicinal value."
The shop has been renamed, yet again, as Creative in Seattle, which better describes its broadened offerings.
"I try to carry that one lovely item for that one person," Nick says. It seems that he does. Not long ago, a man "dressed to the nines" walked back and forth in front of the store several times, then entered and bought a walking stick to complete his stylish look.
Nick hasn't had as many roles in life as he did in the movies, but he's getting there.
Teru Lundsten is a freelance writer living in Queen Anne.[[In-content Ad]]
