ATHENS (AFP).- Renowned Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who wrote the music for the 1964 classic film "Zorba the Greek", has been hospitalised after suffering a heart attack, the state agency ANA reported Sunday.

Doctors said the 93-year-old was "out of immediate danger" but was being kept in hospital in Athens as a precaution given his advanced age.

Theodorakis penned what is probably the best-known piece of Greek music, the theme tune to Zorba, an instrumental which is still played and danced to around the world.

He is also known in Greece as an icon of resistance against World War II Nazi Germany, as a militant communist in Greece's 1946-49 civil war and as an activist against the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967-74.

Theodorakis has remained a high-profile political campaigner and in February this year was out on the streets again, urging the Greek government not to compromise in the festering name row with neighbouring Macedonia.

In 2012 riot police used tear gas against him during an anti-austerity demonstration outside parliament.


© Agence France-Presse