Mercouri, Melina

▪ 1995

      (MARIA AMALIA MERCOURIS), Greek actress and politician (b. Oct. 18, 1925, Athens, Greece—d. March 6, 1994, New York, N.Y), burst onto the international scene in the role of Ilya, the flamboyant, good-hearted prostitute in the film Never on Sunday (1960); in later years as Greece's minister of culture (1981-89; 1993-94), she used her fame as an actress in her crusade to repatriate Greek antiquities. Mercouri studied drama at the National Theatre in Athens (1943-46), made her stage debut in 1944, and established her reputation as Blanche in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1949). Her first screen appearance in Stella (1955) drew little attention. In 1965 she married the French-born U.S. director Jules Dassin, who made her a star in Never on Sunday and many of her other memorable films, including Phaedra (1962), Topkapi (1964), and A Dream of Passion (1978). She also re-created her most famous role in a Broadway musical adaptation, Ilya, Darling (1967). Mercouri, who was the daughter of a former government minister and the granddaughter of a long-time mayor of Athens, was abroad in 1967 when a military coup toppled the Greek government. She fought tirelessly against the junta, defiantly naming her 1971 autobiography I Was Born Greek after she was deprived of her citizenship. She triumphantly returned to Athens after the junta collapsed (1974) and, running as a socialist, was elected to Parliament three years later. As minister of culture, Mercouri devoted much of her energy to a worldwide campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles, sculptures removed from the Parthenon and placed in the British Museum in the early 19th century.

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▪ Greek actress and politician

born Oct. 18, 1925, Athens, Greece

died March 6, 1994, New York, N.Y., U.S.

      Greek actress and political activist who was the minister of culture in her country's first Socialist government (1981).

      Mercouri came from a politically prominent family. She graduated from the Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece. Her first major role, at the age of 20, was Lavinia in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, but perhaps her most memorable parts were Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and the good-hearted prostitute in the film Never on Sunday (1960). This film gained her an international reputation that would serve her well in politics. Her involvement in politics was triggered by her indignation over the military coup that brought a handful of army colonels to power in Greece in 1967.

      Married to the French-born American film director Jules Dassin (who directed most of her films), she was abroad when the coup occurred. She dedicated herself to stimulating opposition against the junta in Europe and the United States, to the extent that she was deprived of her Greek citizenship by the colonels' regime. After the collapse of the dictatorship in 1974, she returned to Greece and promptly joined Andreas Papandreou's (Papandreou, Andreas) Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok). She ran unsuccessfully that year for deputy from the same Piraeus district that had made her famous in Never on Sunday, but she was elected the second time around in 1977. Reelected in 1981 when Pasok won a general election, she was appointed by Papandreou to be his minister for culture. One of her major efforts was an attempt to persuade the British government to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece; she also increased government subsidies for the arts. She served in the post until 1989, when the Socialists lost power, and was reappointed after their electoral victory in 1993. In 1971 Mercouri published an autobiography, I Was Born Greek.

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