Melina Mercouri: the last Greek Goddess

Today, completed 19 years since the death of Melina Mercouri or else ... the last Greek goddess.

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Melina was a world-famous actress and politician but above all she was a symbol of passion-for-life.

She was born in 1920 and was daughter and grand-daughter of two very well known political figures of the time.

After graduating from the National School of Theater, she followed a career on the stage but it was her film debut role as "Stella" (1955) in takeoff.

The film of Greek director Michalis Cacoyiannis received special praise in Cannes Film Festival a year later.

It was there and then Melina Mercouri met the man she spent the rest of her life: the American director Jules Dassin. People still remember him jumping over the seats in the ceremonial hall so as to reach Melina. She was crying because she was not awarded when he got close and told her:" Don't cry you deserve much more than this award. I'm hooked".

Dassin directed and co-starred with Mercouri in Never on Sunday which

was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the one for Best Song "Never on Sunday" (by Manos Hadjidakis).

Melina also won the award for Best Actress in 1960 Cannes Film Festival.

Several films, award nominations and theatrical appearances followed.

In fact Melina was performing in the USA when the military regime took power in Greece overthrowing the Republic, in 1967.

She immediately took action against dictatorship and soon after lost her Greek citizenship.

" I was born and will die Greek " she responded and kept on traveling around the world denouncing Junta.

Melina Mercouri returned to Greece only after the fall of military regime in 1974.

She then started her political career with the socialistic party " PASOK" of Andreas Papandreou. She entered parliament in 1977.

In the 1980s, as Minister of Culture,
she raised the issue of the return of the Parthenon Marble kept in British Museum, in London, to the Acropolis Museum.
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On 7 February 1994, Melina left for the States. Before getting on the plane she touched her blue an' white scarf and said smiling: "I wear the colors of our country and feel optimistic."

The Never-On-Sunday-girl died a month later, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in NY, from lung cancer.
It was Sunday.