Eventually, he owned the famous Parisian club 'La Rose Rouge' where performers included singer Juliette Gréco.

In New York he also met German singer Nico, who had adopted his first name as her stage name several years earlier while modelling for photographer Herbert Tobias.

[4] It was Papatakis who suggested Nico pursue a career in music and enrolled her in her first singing lessons.

[6] In 1967, he directed another film, Oi Voskoi (The Shepherds in Greek), which starred his wife at the time, Olga Karlatos.

He was then married to actress Olga Karlatos from 1967 to 1982, with whom he had a son, Serge Papatakis, born in 1967.