Melina Mercouri was a much-loved Greek actress, singer, and politician. Born on 31 October 1920 in Athens.
Here is Melina’s official biography, detailing her life
Melina Mercouri is one of Greece’s eminent female figures of the 20th century. With a multifaceted and dynamic character, she was pivotal in the resistance against the Colonels’ Junta from 1967 to 1974 and achieved international acclaim as a theatre and film actress. Her iconic roles have become a part of cinema history. Additionally, her political career significantly impacted Greek culture.
Melina Mercouri, affectionately known by the diminutive of her name, Amalia-Maria, was born in Athens on October 18, 1920. Hailing from a family steeped in politics, she was the cherished granddaughter of Spyros Mercouris, one of Athens’ most esteemed and long-serving mayors, holding office for over 30 years, and the daughter of Stamatis Mercouris, a member of EDA (Party of the Greek Democratic Left) and former Minister of Public Order and Public Works. Following her secondary education, she was admitted to the National Theatre’s Drama School, having been impressed with a recitation of a Karyotakis poem. Under the tutelage of the renowned Dimitris Rondiris, she graduated in 1944. She then joined the National Theatre, taking on minor roles in the central and Piraeus stages. Her portrayal of Electra in Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra” in 1945 marked a significant moment in her early acting career.
Her first big success in the theatre was the role of Blanche Dubois in Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”, staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre in 1949. During 1949 – 1950, she worked with the Art Theatre in plays by Aldus Huxley, Arthur Miller, Philip Jordan, and Andre Roussin.
She then appeared in Paris in boulevard plays by Jacques Deval and Marcel Achard, with whom she collaborated very well. While in Paris she met Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Colette, Francoise Sagan. She was fascinated, and her metamorphosis began.
In 1953, she received the Marika Kotopouli Prize. After 1955, she returned to Greece and starred at the Kotopouli-Rex theatre in many plays of the classical repertoire, like Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and Anouilh’s “L’Alouette.” In the ’50s, she joined the theatre actor’s trade union movement.
Melina Mercouri began her film career in 1955 with “Stella,” directed by Michalis Cacoyannis, which garnered special praise at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. It was there she met American filmmaker Jules Dassin, who would become her lifelong partner in both life and work. The following year, she starred in Dassin’s “He Who Must Die.” From 1958 onwards, she took leading roles in several of his films, including “The Law,” “Never on Sunday,” “Phaedra,” “Topkapi,” and “10:30 P.M. Summer,” as well as in Juan Antonio Bardem’s “The Mechanical Piano” and Joseph Losey’s “The Gypsy and the Gentleman.” In 1960, she was awarded the Best Actress prize at Cannes for “Never on Sunday,” a film that also received five Oscar nominations. Throughout her career, Mercouri collaborated with renowned directors such as Vittorio de Sica, Ronald Neame, Carl Foreman, and Norman Jewison, among others.
From 1956 – 1967, she continued her stage career with a brilliant performance in Tennessee William’s “The Sweet Bird of Youth” in 1960 at the Art Theatre under the direction of Karolos Koun. Melina Mercouri has starred in about 60 plays in Athens and in 19 movies by renowned directors.
Melina Mercouri combined the magic of the performing arts with the realism of politics. She was actively involved in many aspects of social and political life, first during the struggle against the dictatorship and later, in 1977, as a Member of Parliament and, finally, from 1981 to 1989 and from 1993 until she died as Minister of Culture.
During the colonel’s coup in April 1967, Melina Mercouri was in the United States performing in the Broadway musical “Illya Darling,” an adaptation of “Never on Sunday.” She promptly engaged in the fight against the dictatorship, embarking on a global tour to raise awareness about Greece’s authoritarian regime, advocating for its international isolation and downfall. Throughout the dictatorship’s seven-year tenure, she emerged as a prominent and outspoken opponent of the junta. In retaliation, the regime revoked her Greek citizenship and seized her property, and she faced terrorist attacks and an assassination attempt in Genoa. Undeterred by the risks, she resisted until the junta’s collapse, utilizing speeches, interviews, recordings, marches, concerts, and hunger strikes.
From 1970 to 1973, she starred in Jules Dassin’s movies Promise at Dawn and The Rehearsal.
After the fall of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in 1974, she settled in Greece, where she continued her political activities with the Panhellenic Socialist Party (PASOK), of which she was a founding member. She was actively involved in the women’s movement and served as a member of the party’s Central Committee, as well as a rapporteur for the Culture Section. In the legislative elections of 1974, she ran as a PASOK candidate in the 2nd Piraeus constituency, obtaining 7,500 votes but losing the seat by just 33 votes.
Alongside her political action and party membership, she started working on a TV program called “Dialogues”, on social issues. Of the 14 episodes, only the two in Cyprus were broadcast, and then the National Broadcasting Organization (ERT) did not allow the program to be aired. The matter came before Parliament but with no result. She made two more films on the “Provinces of Athens” and “The Ahmet Aga estate in Euboea”. She continued her theatre and cinema career with unforgettable roles in Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera”, directed by Jules Dassin (1975) after 15 years of absence from the Athenian stage and as “Medea” in Euripides’s tragedy staged by the State Theatre of Northern Greece and directed by Minos Volanakis (1976).
The performance was shown throughout Macedonia and in the Lycabettus theatre but was not allowed in Epidaurus’s official program of the ancient drama festival. This interdiction by the chief executive of the National Theatre appointed by the government then in power gave her the title of the “exiled Medea”. In 1978 she starred in “A Dream of Passion” based on the Medea character directed by Jules Dassin. In November 1977, Melina Mercouri was elected as a Member of Parliament for PASOK in the 2nd Piraeus Constituency, garnering the most votes in Greece. After her victory, she devoted all her energy to politics and culture.
For a short time, she played in a performance with texts by Brecht “An evening with Bertolt Brecht” 1978, directed by Jules Dassin. During the winter of 1979 – 1980, she starred in Tennessee William’s “Sweet Bird of Youth”, directed by Jules Dassin and in the summer, she interpreted Clytemnestra’s part in “Oresteia” staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre in Epidaurus. Her international fame and appeal brought her in contact with the great European leaders and she never missed the opportunity to promote Greece.
She was again elected deputy in 1981. During the next elections (1985, June 1989, November 1989, 1990 and 1993) her name was on the list of the top national parliamentarians. When PASOK won the October 1981 elections, Melina Mercouri was appointed Minister of Culture, a post she would keep for 8 years of the PASOK government. She was Greece’s first Minister of Culture to remain in office for so long. Amongst her wide-ranging activities at the Ministry of Culture, Melina Mercouri:
– Started the campaign for the Parthenon Marbles‘ return to the British Museum. At the same time, she gave special attention to the restoration of the Acropolis monuments and held an international competition for the design of the New Acropolis Museum.
– She commissioned a study for the integration of all the archaeological sites of Athens, i.e. the integration of Athens’ historic centre at Iera Odos – Plaka – Temple of Olympian Zeus triangle, to create a 4 km archaeological park, a pedestrianised area free from traffic where residents and visitors could learn and enjoy the history of Athens.
– She introduced free access to museums and archaeological sites for Greek citizens as part of an overall education effort aimed at the people, youth in particular.
– She organised a series of impressive exhibitions of Greek cultural heritage and contemporary Greek art in all five continents.
– She prioritised the protection of Greece’s recent architectural heritage, supporting the restoration of important buildings throughout the country, especially in Athens (Schlieman Mansion – Weiler building).
– She helped complete the Athens Hall of Music (Megaron Mousikis Athinon). She bought and commissioned the reconstruction of the REX building.
– In 1989, she backed the Thessaloniki Byzantine Museum project, the largest Greek museum built in Greece in the 20th century.
– She established annual literary prizes.
– She established the Municipal Regional Theatres and contributed to the creation and operation of Municipal Conservatories.
– She supported and promoted the Greek cinema.
– She was one of the devoted supporters of the Athens bid for the 1996 Olympics to commemorate the centennial of the first Modern Olympic Games of 1896.
– In 1983, during the first Greek presidency, she invited the Culture Ministers of the ten European Union Member States at the time to an informal meeting in Zappeion where she asked them to participate in a joint action to increase the people’s cultural awareness since there was no reference to cultural questions in the Treaty of Rome. So, on her initiative, the EEC Ministers of Culture sessions were established.
– One of her greatest achievements as Minister of Culture was establishing the institution of the Cultural Capitals of Europe, with Athens being chosen as the first capital in 1985.
A fruitful and constructive dialogue with the countries of Eastern Europe began on her initiative in 1988, during the second Greek presidency. She supported the idea of cooperation between Eastern Europe and the European Union and tried to open up the borders despite the strong reservations of her European partners. The idea was implemented in 1989 with the celebration of the Month of Culture in Eastern countries.
In the legislative elections 1989, Melina Mercouri was elected as a national parliamentarian and remained a member of PASOK’s Executive Bureau. In 1990, she was a candidate for the city of Athens in the municipal elections. In 1992, she played the part of Clytemnestra in the opera “Pylades” by Kouroupos and Chimonas, directed by Dionysis Fotopoulos, at the Athens Hall of Music. Following PASOK’s victory in the 1993 elections, Melina Mercouri was back at the Ministry of Culture. During her short second term of office, Melina Mercouri had the program:
– The creation of a cultural park in the Aegean to safeguard and enhance the civilisation and environment of the Aegean islands.
– To link culture with education at all educational levels by creating a new system of post-training teachers to include cultural references in all subjects. And above all the children find pleasure in learning. She advanced the slogan of Education through Enjoyment.
Until her final days, Melina tried hard to have the Parthenon Marbles returned. Her famous quote was, “You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are our noblest symbol of excellence. They are a tribute to democratic philosophy. They are aspirations and our name. They are the essence of Greekness.”
Melina Mercouri died on 6 March 1994 at New York’s Memorial Hospital, and her funeral was held on 10 March 1994, with Prime Minister’s honours.
But more important to Melina Mercouri was that the love she had for the Greek people was returned to her and that her memory is revered and cherished by all.
*Source melinamercourifoundation.com