Director Jules Dassin, 96
Posted: Monday, March 31st, 2008 4:13 pm
ATHENS (AFP) — Veteran US moviemaker Jules Dassin, who died Monday in Athens at the age of 96, was a film noir master who sought exile in Europe after being named during the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.
Dassin married the legendary Greek actress Melina Mercouri, joined her campaign for the return of Greece’s lost Parthenon marbles and was eventually awarded honorary Greek citizenship.
Born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1911, Dassin earned a reputation as an innovative director and was one of America’s hottest young filmmakers of the 1940s with films such as “Brute Force” (1947) and “Naked City” (1948).
But as an active Communist who never compromised on his beliefs, he was blacklisted at the height of the witch-hunts on leftists unleashed by Senator Joseph McCarthy. …
In 1960, Dassin made “Never on Sunday” a story about an American in Greece trying to save a kind-hearted prostitute.
The film won an Oscar for Best Song for composer Manos Hadjidakis, and is considered one of the finest movies ever made in Greece. …
More importantly for Dassin however, the film starred Melina Mercouri, one of Greece’s most adored actresses. … Read full obituary
