Melina Merkouri

             MELINA MERCOURI

 

Melina Mercouri was born in Athens, Greece on October 18, 1920. An early woman activist, she was elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977. Later Miss Mercouri was to become the first woman to hold a Senior cabinet post "Minister of Culture" in the Greek government. In 1971 she wrote her autobiography titled "I Was Born Greek." Melina wed actor Jules Dassin in 1966 and remained married to him until her death in 1994. Melina Mercouri died of lung cancer in New York City, on March 6, 1994.

 

  

 

 

 

Acting career

Early years on stage

• After her graduation, Mercouri joined the National Theatre of Greece and played the role of Electra in Eugene O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra in 1945. In 1949, she had her first major success in the theatre playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams and staged by Karolos Koun's Art Theatre. Until 1950, she also worked in the same theatre in other plays by Aldous Huxley, Arthur Miller and André Roussin.

 

• Mercouri then moved to Paris, where she appeared in boulevard plays by Jacques Deval and Marcel Achard, and met famous French playwrights and novelists such as Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Colette and Françoise Sagan. In 1953, Mercouri received the Marika Kotopouli Prize.

 

• Mercouri returned to Greece in 1955. At the Kotopouli-Rex Theatre, Mercouri starred in Macbeth by William Shakespeare and L'Alouette by Jean Anouilh.[citation needed]

 

 

International success

Mercouri's first movie was the Greek language film Stella (1955), directed by future Zorba the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis. The film received special praise at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, where she met American film director Jules Dassin, with whom she would share not only her career but also her life. Their first professional pairing was 1957's He Who Must Die. Other films by Dassin and featuring Mercourifollowed, such as The Law (1959).

Mercouri became well-known to international audiences when she starred in Never on Sunday (1960), of which Dassin was the director and co-star. For this film, she earned the Best Actress Award at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.[2]

 

After her first major international success, Mercouri went on to star in Phaedra (1962), for which she was nominated again for the BAFTA Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Drama. The recognition of her acting talent did not stop though, as her role in Topkapi (1964) granted her one more nomination, this time for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Mercouri worked with such directors as Joseph Losey, Vittorio De Sica, Ronald Neame, Carl Foreman, Norman Jewison, and starred in films like Spanish language The Uninhibited by Juan Antonio Bardem.

 

Mercouri continued her stage career in the Greek production of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth (1960), under the direction of Karolos Koun. In 1967, she played the leading role in Illya Darling (from 11 April 1967 to 13 January 1968) on Broadway,[3] for which she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. Mercouri's performance in Promise at Dawn (1970) earned her another Golden Globe Award nomination.

 

• Was nominated for Broadway's 1968 Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for "Illya, Darling," a musicalization of the film Ποτέ την Κυριακή (1960) in which she played the same role.

• A member of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist movement.

• Elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977.

• Served as Greece's Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1990.

• Ran for mayor of Athens in 1990, but was defeated.

Involvement in politics

After the fall of the Junta and during the metapolitefsi in 1974, Mercouri settled in Greece and was one of the founding members of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), a centre-left political party. She was a member of the party's Central Committee and a rapporteur for the Culture Section, while being involved in the women's movement as well.

 

Death

Mercouri died on 6 March 1994 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, from lung cancer.[14] She was survived by her husband, Jules Dassin. She had no children. She received a state funeral with Prime Minister's honors at the First Cemetery of Athens four days later. The Melina MercouriFoundation was founded by her widower. After her death, UNESCO established the ‘Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes (UNESCO-Greece)' which rewards outstanding examples of action to safeguard and enhance the world's major cultural landscapes.

 

Tribute

The song "Melina" by Camilo Sesto (from the 1975 album "Amor libre") is dedicated to Melína Merkoúri.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I was born Greek and I would die Greek. Mr. Pattakos was born a dictator and he will die     as a dictator."

(Her reply to the fact that the Military dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974) in Greece had proclaimed that she was no longer a Greek citizen.)

-Christiana Merkouri