The film that catapulted her to fame was Never on Sunday, which earned her an acting award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination the following year
Today they are completed 29 years since the death of Melina Merkouri. Melina didn’t care to leave her mark. To fill the place alive with signs and reminders of all kinds. She didn’t care, because her imprint was already there. It was the Stella of Kakogiannis. Medea by Volanakis. Clytemnestra and the heroine of the plays of Tennessee Williams by Kuhn. And together with Melina of the resistance against the dictatorship who did what became known and what she kept quiet, this one who is supposed to be so outgoing, out of modesty. Melina was her own imprint.
She was the woman who made Greece known to the ends of the earth like no other. The Melina of “Never on Sunday”, who upset Cannes with the dresser, the Melina of the anti-dictatorship struggle who annoyed the colonels to the extent that they took away her citizenship, the Melina of the Parthenon Sculptures who claimed their return until her death, Amalia-Maria (as she was baptized) Merkouri, the Minister of Culture of the governments of Andreas Papandreou.
He firmly believed that “culture is our heavy industry.” That it is a serious exportable product and that its promotion is of great importance and value. “Greece must be the protagonist for Culture. This is Greece. Her heritage, her fortune. And if we lose that, we are nobody,” she said in an interview with ERT.
She envisioned the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum until her death. She launched the campaign by raising the issue officially at the UNESCO International Conference of Ministers of Culture, in July 1982, in Mexico. “You must understand what the Parthenon Sculptures mean to us,” he declared. “It is our pride. They are our sacrifices. It is the ultimate symbol of kindness. It is a tribute to democratic philosophy. It is our ambition and name. It is the essence of our Greekness”. And he emphasized: “If you ask me if I will be alive when the Parthenon Sculptures return to Greece, I tell you that yes, I will. But even if I am no longer alive, I will be born again.” In order to support the demand for the return of the Sculptors, in 1989 he announced a tender for the construction of a new Acropolis Museum, while emphasizing the restoration work of the Acropolis, but also the rescue of our cultural heritage.
Maria-Amalia (Melina) Merkouri was born on October 18, 1920 in Athens, from a political family. She was the daughter of the military and politician Stamatis Merkouris (1895-1967). Her grandfather was the doctor and politician Spyros Merkouris (1856-1939), the longest serving mayor of Athens. Her uncle was Georgios Merkouris (1886-1943), a prominent representative of National Socialism in Greece, who was the governor of the National Bank during the Occupation.
The young Melina, married at a young age to her much older wealthy landowner, Panagi Harokopos, with whom she divorced in 1962. In Katochi, she was romantically linked with the black-eyed and philanderer Phidias Giadikiaroglou, a relationship for which she apologized several times.
He was accused of living in opulence while the people starved. She herself will admit that she was drawing money from her two rich men and channeling it to the Resistance, while with her acquaintances she helped rescue resistance fighters. These claims were confirmed by several of her colleagues from the artistic field.
In 1943 she decided to pursue an acting career and was accepted to the National Theater School of Drama from which she graduated in 1946. In 1944 she made her stage debut with Alexis Solomos’ play “The Path of Freedom”, which was quickly dropped due to the ” of December”. In the following years he collaborated with the National Theater and the troupes of Katerina and Marika Kotopoulis.
He first appeared in the cinema in 1955 with the legendary film by Michalis Kakogiannis “Stella”. Her presence in Cannes fascinated the American director Gilles Dassin, and from the shores of the French Riviera began their artistic and personal relationship, which ended with marriage in 1966. With Dassin, she shot the films “Christ is crucified again (1957), from novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis, “The Law” (1958), “Never on Sunday” (1960), “Phaedra” (1962) and “Topkapi” (1964).
The film that catapulted her to fame was Never Sunday, which earned her a performance award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination the following year. Her brilliant performance of Manos Hadjidaki’s song “The Children of Piraeus”, revealed another aspect of her talent. The same role, of the good-hearted prostitute Ilya, also earned her a Tony Award nomination in 1967 in the Broadway stage adaptation of the film, Ilya Darling.
From 1981 to 1989 and from 1993 to 1994, she served as Minister of Culture and brightened the ministry with her presence and policies. Her vision was the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum. She created the Municipal Regional Theaters to bring the inhabitants of the province into contact with the theater, while her own inspiration was also the creation of the institution of the “Cultural Capital of Europe”.
Melina Mercouri breathed her last on March 6, 1994, in a New York hospital, where she was being treated for lung cancer.
Source :Skai
I am Frederick Tuttle, who works in 247 News Agency as an author and mostly cover entertainment news. I have worked in this industry for 10 years and have gained a lot of experience. I am a very hard worker and always strive to get the best out of my work. I am also very passionate about my work and always try to keep up with the latest news and trends.
