Elias Bizannes was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor. His work was written in Greek and published in Greek and English. After leaving high school in 1914, he went to Athens to study law. In 1919, at the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War, he was drafted into the Greek army, serving as a military correspondent in Asia Minor. When the war was over, he returned to Smyrna, but avoided catastrophe by escaping to Alexandria. Separated from his family, he left for Australia in 1922. In Australia he first worked as a labourer until, in 1925, he became editor and manager of the newspaper To Ethniko Vema. From 1941 he moved into running small businesses. He wrote popular poetry and song lyrics, for which he often composed the music, as well as comic monodies (poems of comic content set to music and performed by one person). He was a popular improvisor of poems and music at community functions.
