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Melina Mercouri: National Theatre
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Vibrant, intensely free-spirited Greek actress Melina Mercouri was the daughter of a prominent Athenian politician. Much against the desires of her parents, she became an actress in her teens, enrolling in the National Theater of Greece and entering films in 1955.
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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.
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Melina Mercouri (her true first name was Maria Amalia) was born on October 18, 1920 in Athens. She belongs to a great family of the metropolitan middle-class (her grandfather, Spyrídon Merkoúris, were a mayor of Athens of 1899 to 1914 and 1929 to 1934, and her father appointed at the Parliament). She get married at 15 years and divorce three years later. During the war, she is registered at the Dramatic Institute of the National Theatre of Athens and begins a career of actress which lead her between Athens and Paris : she works with Marcel Achard in 1949 in Le moulin de la Galette (with Pierre Fresnay and Yvonne Printemps) and in 1952, in the theatre Antoine, in Les compagnons de la Marjolaine (with Arletty and Bernard Blier).
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[P]erformed at the Mark Hellinger Theatre (New York) in 1967, with Melina Mercouri in the main part. Cyd Charisse replaced her in 1968, and took the show on tour all over the United States.
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