Thread by @dean_frey

Remembering Melina Mercouri on her birthday 🎂
📷 Slim Aarons, Athens, 1961
"To laugh for the camera is hard. Dassin taught me. To laugh in life? I would die without!"

Melina Mercouri with Romy Schneider & Jules Dassin on the set of 10:30 PM
Summer, 1966
What a wonderful photo; the still photographer on the set was Antonio Luengo.

This Roger Corbeau portrait of Melina Mercouri, taken on the set of Jules Dassin's Phaedra in 1961, is in the full-blown glamour style of 1930s Hollywood.

Another shot of Melina Mercouri on the set of Phaedra, by Roger Corbeau, 1961
@MAPatrimoine

Sam Lévin took more than a few portraits of Mercouri. This is my favourite, from c. 1963
@MAPatrimoine

More Sam Lévin portraits of Melina Mercouri, c. 1961

Melina Mercouri by William Lovelace, November 16, 1960
Who do you think of when people say "the camera loves her, or him"? Mercouri is close to the top of my list.

Melina Mercouri by Henry Groskinsky, 1960s
"A creature you'd be happy to take home to mother, if mother was out."
- Walter Kerr, @NYTimes

Melina Mercouri at the United Nations, August 29, 1967
📷 Harry Benson

Melina Mercouri on the set of Vittorio de Sica's The Last Judgment
📷 Herbert List, 1961
A completely fearless actress

"If we lose our culture," said Melina Mercouri when she was the Greek Minister of Culture, "we are nothing. We are our culture." She never stopped fighting for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the @BritishMuseum

"I was born a Greek, and I will die a Greek. Pattakos was born a Fascist and will die a Fascist."
- Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin on the set of Phaedra
📷 Constantine Manos, Hydra, 1961

Mood

Melina Mercouri in Vittorio de Sica's Last Judgement
📷 Herbert List, Naples, 1961

To end my Melina Mercouri birthday thread the way it began, I'll go back to the Slim Aarons photoshoot in Athens.
Remembering Melina, born 101 years ago today 🎂