George Payzis completed primary school then had to work in his father's factory before becoming a shoemaker in Athens. He sailed for Australia with his sister and her husband on the German ship Barbarossa in October 1910. Payzis took private lessons in English for two years and gained a diploma in shoe pattern-making and cutting in 1916 from Sydney Technical College. He worked in one shoe factory for forty years until his retirement in 1966.
Payzis had a great passion for the theatre, studying at a drama school in Athens and attending theatre performances. Between 1912 and 1915 he studied acting at the Repertory Theatre Society with Gregan McMahon and then became active in the Greek theatre in Sydney. Payzis participated in dozens of productions over the following sixty years, performing in Greek and English in dramas, comedies, operetta and revues. His acting name was H. A. Haggard. He also gave many lectures on theatre and belonged to a number of Greek associations. In 1915 Payzis founded the first Greek Philodramatic Society; in March 1931 the Greek Theatre Group of Australia; in 1936 the metropolitan Amateur Theatre group of Ayia Sophia; in 1939 the Theatre Group; in 1952 the Greek Arts Group of Australia and in 1963 the Greek Theatre of Australia. He also worked with the Sydney New Theatre and the Ensemble Theatre. At the Third Annual Eisteddfod of Sydney in 1935 his one-act play 'Carrion Crow' which he produced and staged with the Workers' Art Club Players was awarded first prize. Payzis wrote an unpublished play titled 'The Grandmother' in 1970 on the impact of the split in the Greek Church in Australia on Greek families.
Payzis made a huge contribution to the cultural and philanthropic activities of the Greek community in Sydney and Australian society generally. At the age of eighty-three he enrolled in an Arts course at the University of Sydney where he studied for one year. Payzis began writing poetry in 1915; many of his poems were never published. His poetry appeared in several Greek language periodicals: To Ethniko Vema, Panellenios, Kerykas, Phos, Kyriake, Krikos and Tahydromos.
